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Freeman Chooses Atos Origin to Serve as National SAP Integration Provider

- Atos Origin wins competitive bid to handle 26-branch implementation -

DALLAS, December 11, 2006 –Freeman®, a leading producer of corporate conventions, trade shows and events, has selected Atos Origin to facilitate the company’s deployment of a common SAP platform in its various offices across North America through the mySAP 2005 solution. Terms of the engagement were not released.

Atos Origin will spearhead a full integration effort — including project preparation, blueprint development, realization testing, final prep and go live — with specific focus on Freeman’s business functions of finance and accounting, human resources, procurement, operations and exhibitor services.

Once implemented, this integrated enterprise management system will help Freeman optimize key business functions such as warehouse and inventory management and address critical areas such as human resources, procurement, financial reporting and product development. By streamlining Freeman’s systems for customer relationship management, exhibitor order entries, billing, time entry, and more, Atos Origin can help the company’s employees remain focused on creating world-class face-to-face marketing events.

Most of Atos Origin’s activities will revolve around the Freeman headquarters in Dallas, Texas, with deployment across 26 branches throughout North America. In a future phase, Freeman will also deploy the new system to AVW-TELAV in Canada and other affiliates. Freeman currently employs a range of different in-house legacy systems and recently decided it was time to transition to a single consistent and complementary solution.

“We chose Atos Origin based on the high level of experience of their dedicated implementation professionals and the company’s fixed-rate fee proposal,” said Carol Kelly, CIO for Freeman. “Atos Origin demonstrated both the technical capability and a commitment to maximizing our return on investment. Their willingness to share the risk shows respect for our budgetary interests and a true interest in a client-centered relationship.”

For the Freeman implementation, Atos Origin will leverage the ASAP methodology to plan and manage the implementation with the use of both SAP and Atos Origin tools to accelerate the project where appropriate.

“Unlike many information technology service providers that rely heavily on subcontractors to handle client projects, Atos Origin employs senior in-house SAP specialists who drive customer implementations,” said Angie Goodwin, vice president ERP services for Atos Origin North America. “We have been an SAP enterprise resource planning implementation partner for 25 years and all of our Atos Origin project lead professionals on this implementation have at least six years of SAP experience. That combination of proficiency and experience is a big selling point for our clients.”

Atos Origin’s North American Consulting and System Integration headquarters is located in Dallas, giving Freeman’s national office direct access to executive management and project support.

Earlier this year, Atos Origin was recognized by SAP for outstanding partnership, being the only company to win the SAP Pinnacle Award 2006 in the Global Hosting category. Atos Origin has more than 25 years experience working with SAP applications and is a Partner of SAP Global Services, an SAP Global Hosting Partner, and a member of the SAP NetWeaver® Partnership Initiative. The Atos Origin practice for SAP applications has more than 4,400 SAP consultants around the globe and has SAP Certified Data Centers in all geographical regions.

About Freeman
Freeman is the leader in producing events that facilitate face-to-face marketing for their clients in expositions, corporate events, conventions, and exhibit programs. With offices in 26 cities across North America, the company remains privately owned by the Freeman family and its employee owners. For more information, please visit the company’s website at: www.freemanco.com.

About Atos Origin
Atos Origin is an international information technology services company. Its business is turning client vision into results through the application of consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company''s annual revenues are $6.5 billion and it employs over 47,000 people in 40 countries. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international blue-chip companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, Atos Consulting, Atos Euronext Market Solutions and Atos Worldline. For more information, please visit the company’s website at: www.atosorigin.com