MDA Wins Best Practices In Storage Award

(May 13, 2003) - MDA Geospatial Services U.S. today announced that it has been recognized by IDG's Computerworld, in partnership with the Storage Networking Industry Association, as a winner of the "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Program. The award honors organizations that have applied unique solutions to overcoming storage challenges. The awards were bestowed during a special awards ceremony at Storage Networking World (SNW) Spring 2003, held at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix, Ariz. from April 14 - 17, 2003.

MDA Geospatial Services U.S. (then Earth Satellite Corporation) was chosen from more than 500 IT end-user companies and organizations that responded to an initial "call for nominations" in mid-2002. This call was issued to multiple industry audiences, including all SNIA member companies and Computerworld subscribers responsible for storage solutions in their enterprises. Fifty finalists were evaluated by a panel of enterprise and storage industry experts based on case study submissions that profiled the company, its IT department and storage challenges, as well as application deployment details, summaries of the key technology used and measurable solution outcomes.

Judges of the program were:

• Wayne Adams, member, board of directors, SNIA and SNW
• Rick Bauer, CIO, The Hill School and chairman, Customer Executive Council, SNIA
• Ray Dunn, representative, Supported Solutions and Storage Management Initiative Forums, SNIA
• Maryfran Johnson, editor in chief, Computerworld
• Leo Leger, vice president, strategic initiatives, Computerworld and member, board of directors, SNW
• Richard Villars, vice president, Storage Systems Research, IDC

"The SNW 'Best Practices in Storage' Awards Program recognizes a broad group of enterprises and the imaginative applications of storage technology that have enhanced their business," said Maryfran Johnson, editor in chief at Computerworld and one of the programs' judges. "This diverse roster of winners - ranging from technology and medical companies, to financial firms and even an NFL franchise - demonstrates the prevalence of storage technology."

Chris Peterson, Director of MDA Geospatial Services U.S. IT programs, said storage network cost, performance, and flexibility have been critical to MDA's profitability. We successfully integrated multiple vendor SAN hardware with Sun StorEdge Performance and Utilization Suites to provide the capacity to meet the demands of our Global satellite mapping contracts. Our Hierarchical Storage Management System and tape libraries have allowed our image analysts and production staff to focus on the image, and not archive and retrieval.

"Our network storage capability is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage in our market," said Doug Hall, Chief Executive Officer of MDA Geospatial Services U.S. "We are proud of the creativity and resourcefulness of our IT staff. Our work involves the processing of a massive amount of data. Not only has our staff found a solution that provides extraordinary results for our customers and internal operations, but this solution has also been achieved in an economical and efficient manner."

About the Earth Satellite Corporation

Earth Satellite Corp. is an industry-leading provider of information products derived from satellite imagery and weather data. The company, founded in 1969 and now a wholly-owned subsidiary of MacDonald Dettwiler Associates, Richmond, BC, provides satellite-based solutions to clients in the U.S. defense and intelligence community, NASA and other U.S. civilian agencies, oil and gas exploration companies, and state and local governments. It provides weather analysis and forecasting products to the energy and agriculture sectors. MDA has undertaken some of the largest satellite image processing tasks in the history of the industry, processing more than 25,000 satellite images over the past four years.

About Computerworld

Computerworld is the only integrated media company focused exclusively on the information needs of IT Leaders - those who manage and implement technology in Global 2000 organizations. The company's flagship weekly newspaper - along with its Computerworld.com Web site and conference series for IT Leaders - form the U.S.-based hub of the world's largest (58-edition) worldwide IT media network. Publishing since 1967, Computerworld has been recognized numerous times by Folio: Magazine and the Computer Press Association as the best computer newspaper, is winner of the 2003 Jesse H. Neal Award for "Best News Coverage," and was named to the "Media Power 50" in 2002 by Crain Communications' BtoB Magazine. Winner of more than 70 print and online editorial awards since 1998, Computerworld has a newspaper circulation of 202,000, a total print audience of 1,846,000 (according to IntelliQuest CIMS v.9.0), and an online audience of 800,000 unique monthly visitors (according to DoubleClick).

Computerworld is a business unit of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research and event company. IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers and offers online users the largest network of technology-specific sites around the world through IDG.net (http://www.idg.com), which comprises more than 330 targeted Web sites in 80 countries. IDG is also a leading producer of 168 computer-related events worldwide, and IDG's research company, IDC, provides global market intelligence and advice through 51 offices in 43 countries.

About the SNIA

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit organization, made up of over 300 companies and individuals spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA members share a common goal: to set the pace of the industry by ensuring that storage networks become efficient, complete, and trusted solutions across the IT community. To this end the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For information visit the SNIA Web site.