Ness Wins $3.7 Million Contract With Israel's Meitav Regional Water and Sewage Corporation

HACKENSACK, New Jersey, September 15, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ness Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: NSTC and TASE: NSTC), a global provider of IT services and solutions, announced today that it has been awarded a contract by Israel's Meitav Regional Water and Sewage Corporation Ltd. to provide development, improvement and maintenance services for the company's SAP-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) and billing system. The 5-year engagement is valued at NIS 14.1 million, or approximately $3.7 million. The contract also includes an optional 3-year extension, valued at an additional NIS 8.5 million, or approximately $2.2 million.

Meitav provides water and sewage services to 90,000 households, businesses and public institutions in the towns of Petach Tikva (the sixth largest city in Israel), El'ad and Kafr Bara, east of Tel Aviv. Meitav serves approximately 250,000 inhabitants in total.

The system, called Meitavit, is an end-to-end water and sewage services management system. Meitavit includes various SAP-based components including financial, logistics, procurement, inventory, control, billing and collections, customer relationship management (CRM), project management and human resources. In addition, Meitavit includes a content management component, based on EMC Documentum, which is distributed in Israel by NessPRO, Ness' software products group. Meitavit completely integrates the various processes, presenting a unified situation picture to decision makers. The billing and collection component uploads water meter readings transmitted remotely from the meters across the city.

"Meitav works constantly to improve its information systems," said Hanoch Milo, chief executive officer of Meitav. "The end result of the implementation of these advanced systems is the maintenance of a high quality, professional, reliable customer service system; an improved and expanded support system for conducting broad infrastructure work; and supporting the system of current water tests. We are pleased about Ness' winning the tender to maintain and support the Meitavit system. The company is well known for its extensive expertise with SAP systems, and its vast experience with municipal billing and collection processes. We believe that Ness will help us improve our various processes, increase our efficiency and maintain Meitav's high-quality technological level."

"This new deal with Meitav is another milestone in our efforts to lead the municipal and utilities IT services sector," said Effi Kotek, president of Ness Israel. "Recent engagements in Israel include an SAP-based billing and collection system for the Tel Aviv Municipality, an SAP-based maintenance management system for Mekorot, Israel's national water company, and an SAP system deployment at the Israel Electric Company. Similar engagements in Europe include system implementations and development for numerous electrical power generation and transmission companies, national and municipal land registry and land mapping departments, among others."

About Ness Technologies

Ness Technologies (NASDAQ: NSTC and TASE: NSTC) is a global provider of IT and business services and solutions with specialized expertise in software product engineering; and system integration, application development, consulting and software distribution. Ness delivers its portfolio of solutions and services using a global delivery model combining offshore, near-shore and local teams. With about 7,800 employees, Ness has operations in North America, Europe, Israel and India, has customers in over 20 countries, and partners with numerous software and hardware vendors worldwide. For more information about Ness, visit http://www.ness.com.

About Meitav

Meitav provides water and sewage services to 90,000 households, businesses and public institutions in the towns of Petach Tikva, El'ad and Kafr Bara, Israel. Overall, Meitav serves approximately 250,000 inhabitants. The corporation was founded in January 2004 according to the Water and Sewage Corporations Law 5761-2001. In addition to its responsibility for the current supply of water to residents, the corporation also handles developing and upgrading the water and sewage infrastructure, and current testing of water quality. Meitav is considered the flagship of Israel's corporate water and sewage market. Technological improvements in information systems, alongside a stringent enforcement and collection system, as well as broad investments in the water and sewage infrastructure, have given it a fine reputation in the industry. Since its establishment, the corporation has invested approximately quarter of a billion shekels in improving the water and sewage infrastructure, which is now 10 times bigger than it was in the period before Meitav was founded. Thanks to improved technologies and infrastructure, water loss is kept to a minimum: less than 4%. The collection rate is approximately 97%. Brigadier General (res.) Hanoch Milo is the corporation's CEO.

Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements often are preceded by words such as "believes," "expects," "may," "anticipates," "plans," "intends," "assumes," "will" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations, as of the date of this press release, and involve certain risks and uncertainties. Ness' actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward looking statements as a result of various factors. Some of the factors that could cause future results to materially differ from the recent results or those projected in forward-looking statements include the "Risk Factors" described in Ness' Annual Report of Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 15, 2010. Ness is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any obligation, to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of such changes, new information, subsequent events or otherwise.

    Media Contact:
    David Kanaan
    Intl: +972-54-425-5307
    Email: [email protected]

    Investor Relations Contact:
    Drew Wright
    USA: +1-201-488-3262
    Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Ness Technologies Inc

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