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Search for Easy-to-Use Enterprise Software Solution Leads to Long-Term Relationship With Prophet 21

YARDLEY, PA, September 19, 2002 - Choosing an enterprise software solution is never easy, but for Mechanical Equipment Co., a Georgia-based HVAC distributorship, the task was made more challenging by the fact that half of its staff, including the owner, had never used a PC. Fortunately, the company selected Prophet 21 (Nasdaq: PXXI) CommerceCenter.

Prophet 21 CommerceCenter uses a Windows platform and SQL Server. Highly scalable, CommerceCenter provides organizations with a powerful, highly customizable application that helps distributors increase sales, improve customer service, and reduce operating costs.

The Search for an Easy-to-Use Solution

When Brud Childress, owner of Mechanical Equipment, assigned this mission to his son, Brandon, then a recent graduate of the University of Georgia, the team agreed that there was one major criteria in choosing an enterprise software solution: it had to be easy to use.

Enter Prophet 21 CommerceCenter. "Because it did everything we wanted it to do and because it was so simple to use, it was easy to pick CommerceCenter and Prophet 21 over all of the other solutions," says Brandon Childress, now vice president of the company.

When the $30 million-a-year, family-owned company went live on the solution in 1998, Childress admits that he had concerns about training since half of the 25 users, as well as Brud, had never used a PC. But, everyone, including the owner, learned quickly. "My father struggled with the mouse at first; he was a little scared of it," laughs Childress. "But right now, he's probably one of the top five users."

Value Quantified

Once Mechanical Equipment began utilizing CommerceCenter's purchasing module, they saw their inventory levels drop by more than 15 percent with an increase in service levels, and turns are up to nine times a year. "We're right at our goal with inventory," Childress says. "With the purchasing module, we've found a way to purchase inventory that now makes a lot of sense." Also, when the company began utilizing the module, their central purchasing agent left. "We haven't had to replace him, so there is an additional savings," he says. Also reduced by CommerceCenter is the number of people processing accounts. Prior to moving to the solution, there were at least two people processing accounts receivables and two people processing accounts payables. Now, there's only one person on each side.

And, at Mechanical Equipment, there is no IT Department. Instead, Childress acts as the Prophet 21 system administrator - even with limited computer experience. "I run the system and I don't have any computer background whatsoever," he confesses. "You don't have to hire a million-dollar-a-year IT guy to maintain the solution," he advises. "You can not only survive, but grow."

About CommerceCenter

Prophet 21 CommerceCenter uses a Windows platform and SQL Server. Highly scalable, CommerceCenter provides organizations with a powerful, highly customizable application that helps distributors increase sales, improve customer service, and reduce operating costs.

Features include order and inventory management, purchasing, pricing and promotion, supply chain optimization, financial management, customer relationship management, business reporting and analysis, e-business, and warehouse automation. CommerceCenter may be implemented onsite, or accessed via the Internet through Prophet 21's ASP and Hardware Hosting Options.

Press Contact Kimberly Meiser Activant Solutions, Inc. 215-493-8900, ext. 3170 kim.meiser@activant.com

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