October 22, 2009 10:45 ET

U.S. Air Force Awards $4.5 Million in Contracts to AtHoc, Expanding Network-Centric Mass Notification Across Major Commands Worldwide

AtHoc's Net-Centric Alerting Solution Provides Emergency Notification Capabilities Supporting More Than 500,000 USAF Personnel Spanning 110 Bases

SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwire - October 22, 2009) - AtHoc, Inc., the pioneer and leader in network-centric emergency mass notification systems, today announced $4.5 million in recent U.S. Air Force (USAF) contracts to continue its deployment of AtHoc IWSAlerts™ worldwide. This expansion builds on the USAF's multi-year, multi-million dollar investment in AtHoc IP-based mass notification technology. Today, the vast majority of USAF units and major commands have standardized on AtHoc IWSAlerts to fulfill their requirements for force protection, recall, critical communication and personnel accountability.

This phase of the USAF expansion of AtHoc IWSAlerts includes deployments in the Pacific, Middle East and the continental United States. The Air Force has deployed AtHoc in several centralized data centers, leveraging AtHoc's Multi-Tenancy architecture to serve multiple bases and units from each data center. Capabilities in this expansion include:

--  Core alerting systems for additional bases and units
--  Continuity-of-operation
--  Mobile operations
--  Automated weather alerting
--  Cross-Command interoperability, enabling delivery of alerts from one
    major command to another spanning multiple locations and network domains
--  Support for consolidation in command post operations and IT management
--  Integration with siren systems (Giant Voice) from multiple vendors for
    unified alerting
--  Integration with communication and collaboration technologies
    including Microsoft SharePoint, Cisco IP Phones and Siemens HiPath
    

"AtHoc is especially adept at anticipating and understanding changes in USAF force protection and mass notifications requirements and at innovating net-centric technologies to fulfill these needs across the enterprise," said Major General Nordie Norwood, USAF (Ret.), who serves as strategic advisor to AtHoc. "For example, U.S. Air Force Central Command uses AtHoc to answer its unique requirements for both theatre-wide alerting and local base resiliency. Air Combat Command and Air Force Reserve Command units use AtHoc in consolidated command posts to achieve mass reach and consistent emergency alerting procedures with fewer personnel. All major commands that have implemented AtHoc enterprise-wide benefit from reduced IT overhead costs by consolidating the applications servers in their respective data centers, yet they gain operational efficiency by pooling communication resources, allowing entire Wings to complete recall or mass notification within minutes. The Air Force has leveraged AtHoc's ground-breaking technology to strengthen continuity of operations and survivability of its critical emergency mass alerting systems while maintaining cost efficiency -- all of which contribute to effectiveness in force protection and personnel accountability."

"The Air Force has been working with AtHoc since day one to strengthen its mass notification capabilities, in support of its evolving needs and growth," said Andy Anderson, AtHoc vice president of Department of Defense (DoD) Operations. "We look forward to expanding our relationship as the Air Force leads the way within the government and DoD to deliver next-generation IP-based alerting to protect lives and property, even to remote areas of the world where troops are deployed."

AtHoc is the number one provider of net-centric mass notifications systems to the DoD. AtHoc solutions are being used to support more than 1.5 million DoD personnel at more than 175 installations worldwide. Installations and commands throughout the DoD benefit from AtHoc's unified alerting approach, enterprise-wide architecture, security, reliability and ease of use.

About AtHoc

AtHoc is the pioneer and recognized leader in providing enterprise-class, network-centric emergency notification systems to military, government and commercial organizations. AtHoc's products are used for physical security, force protection, personnel accountability, recall and regulatory compliance. Millions of end-users worldwide, in organizations such as the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, NASA, Microsoft, Boeing and PricewaterhouseCoopers rely on AtHoc's unified management systems for their emergency alerting and critical communication needs. AtHoc has partnered with market leaders including Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, Harris, Siemens, Avaya, Lockheed Martin and others to bring these notification solutions to the public and commercial markets.

For more information on AtHoc, please visit http://www.athoc.com.