Press Release

January 29, 2001

OTTAWA, Canada - 29 January 2001: Espial, creators of software that powers the world of smart Internet devices, and Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retailer, announced today the launch of an in-store service delivery client to provide real-time customer and employee information. The client is completely platform-independent and has been developed with the Espial Devicetop™ suite of products, including the industry’s leading web browser for smart Internet devices, Espial Escape™.

The delivery client will serve as a launch point for all Home Depot applications, with a single login point for authentication and authorization. The result is a customized Internet and intranet system that allows information--ranging from inventory and pricing to daily HR and employee communications to, accounting and project management data--to be managed and delivered through a centralized channel. Both employees and customers will access information from terminals, PCs and eventually smart devices.

“In developing an enterprise solution, one of our biggest challenges was to be able to create an infrastructure capable of delivering targeted information to a vast audience. The traditional means was not satisfactory. We needed to minimize information overload and flow of paper throughout the organization,” said Ron Griffin, Home Depot Senior Vice President and CIO. “Espial’s technology is the only one we found to give us these capabilities and the ability to cost-effectively deploy the system in all stores nationwide.”

“Home Depot is able to leverage the value of our platform independent technology to give the company a unified working environment and to bridge between the traditional PC environment and a new generation of smart devices,” commented Jaison Dolvane, President and CEO of Espial. “Espial is the only company able to offer a comprehensive, open, and standards-based solution. Our approach has enabled Home Depot to rapidly create customized and branded enterprise applications to address their business needs.”

“This delivery client must be able to dynamically publish content such as alerts, headlines and events to customers, as well as to centrally administer employee communications, with customized delivery for both audiences,” continued Griffin. “Espial’s Java-only browser-based interface does this, and serves as a single launch point for all our internal applications. Escape offers us the flexibility and extensibility we require, and the Espial Espresso rapid development environment let us generate the first prototype in weeks, rather than months.”

The new in-store service delivery pilot client will be available in store March 1, 2001, and will be in pilot for several months. Home Depot has over 1100 stores in business today.

About Home Depot

Founded in 1978, The Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement retailer with fiscal 1999 sales of $38.4 billion. The company employs more than 230,000 associates and has 1,058 stores in 46 states, seven Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina. The company was recently named in the Top 10 Most Admired Companies in America by Fortune magazine, which has also ranked it as America's Most Admired Specialty Retailer for seven consecutive years. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:HD) and is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's 500.