At its 10th annual Mindshare user group and mobile workforce management conference held May 15-17, 2005 in New Orleans, MDSI Mobile Data Solutions Inc. (TSX:MMD)(NASDAQ:MDSI) celebrated the recent release of Advantex in a Box, and unveiled new modules of their enterprise-wide mobile workforce management (EWFM) solution.

With over 300 delegates in attendance, including 16 new customers since last year's Mindshare conference, the conference brought together utility and communications companies from around the world, as well as industry thought leaders and leading suppliers. Fourteen MDSI customers presented deployment success stories and highlighted the operational efficiencies they've realized by investing in enterprise-wide workforce management.

The overriding theme of this year's conference was "work is work". MDSI highlighted a single mobile platform for managing work across the enterprise, regardless of where it originates, who does the work, and the type of work being performed in the field. The company also reiterated a commitment to universal scheduling and enhanced business analytics, for a complete EWFM solution. New Advantex product modules, beta releases, and prototypes included:

- Mobile Inventory Management (MIM): A new application making it easier for mobile technicians to maintain parts inventory in the field. MIM automates the process for restocking vehicles by monitoring parts usage and adjusting stock counts.

- Maintenance Management: A new application allowing planners to associate maintenance or inspection schedules with assets to automatically generate work orders and send them to Advantex for optimal assignment and distribution to the field force.

- Operations Dashboard: A major addition to MDSI's business intelligence offerings giving managers and dispatchers near real-time system monitoring and capacity planning capability with Key Performance Indicators for more effective decision-making.

- Contractor Mobile Application: A new solution giving contractors access to the Advantex Mobile or Dispatch applications over the Web, using Terminal Services technology. Operating in a secure environment, contractors can now complete orders without using a mobile terminal or accessing the corporate network.

- Workforce Availability: A new scheduling application allowing dispatchers, managers, and system administrators to optimally plan, create and adjust workforce shifts. It provides increased flexibility for scheduling working and non-working time, areas, locations, and crews.

- Workforce Optimization: A new scheduling application improving the automatic assignment of work orders to technicians. With an enhanced algorithm for improved routing, the most important work is assigned first.

At last year's Mindshare, MDSI announced Advantex in a Box (r7.7), a completely self-deployable and highly configurable workforce management solution with a simplified upgrade plan and comprehensive online support. This year, enhancements to Advantex r7.7 were announced including improved VAR support for channel readiness, documentation updates, and the expansion of MDSI Online, MDSI's Customer Support web site.

"We believe that we are improving Advantex in ways that will provide an even better return on investment for our customers. The ability to manage all field workers across the enterprise, with a packaged solution, provides customers outstanding value by increasing operational efficiencies and lowering the total cost of ownership," commented Erik Dysthe, President, Chairman, and CEO of MDSI.