USA Technologies` e-Suds™ Goes Into Full Implementation at Carnegie Mellon
University the first to offer online laundry service to its students
MALVERN, PA, April 21, 2004 - USA Technologies (OTC Bulletin Board: USTT) announced today that Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will be the first college campus in the United States to fully implement its eSuds™ Internet connected laundry service.
Carnegie Mellon will be the first university to go live with eSuds, giving its 4,000 campus residents the ability to use the eSuds online laundry services to do their laundry.
Caldwell and Gregory Inc, a laundry service operator and leader in the university and college laundry marketplace, earlier this month announced it would test the eSuds service at Carnegie Mellon over a specific period. The response from students was so positive that after only two weeks into the pilot phase, Caldwell & Gregory and Carnegie Mellon agreed to transition from the pilot to full implementation.
Caldwell and Gregory will install eSuds throughout the campus during the summer break to be ready for use at the beginning of the fall semester.
This rollout makes Carnegie Mellon the first institution in the US to have a fully computerized laundry service. Students will be able to log into their computers and check if washers and dryers are available in the university`s laundry rooms. Students will then be able to activate the washers and dryers with a swipe of their student ID, and later receive a notification via e-mail, cell phone or PDA, indicating their laundry cycle is complete.
"We were very pleased with the incredibly positive response from students to the ease and convenience of eSuds. This convinced us that we should spread eSuds campus wide, because students were telling us they wanted it now," said Tim Michael, Director of Housing Services for Carnegie Mellon.
The pilot captured more than 700 users and was to have continued through the end of the semester. The Associated Press highlighted Carnegie Mellon`s e-Suds success in several newspapers, including USA Today.
"We are delighted that Caldwell and Gregory and Carnegie Mellon have decided to go into full scale implementation and that the results from the pilot were so successful," said Erika Bender, Vice President and Channel Manager for USA Technologies. "This is a giant breakthrough for USA Technologies eSuds programs, and we see it quickly becoming a major source of growing revenue because already we are receiving interest from universities across the Country seeking a similar service," she said.
Under the five-year multi-million dollar agreement, USA Technologies has granted Caldwell and Gregory rights, subject to minimum purchase requirements, to exclusively provide eSuds to colleges and universities in six States and the District of Columbia.
"There are an estimated 4 million machines in the lucrative university and multi-family housing commercial laundry market, and today we proved we are not only the leader in the industry but the dominant player," said Ms. Bender. "No competitors are able to offer as complete a solution as we can with eSuds, and never has such unique technology attracted such national and international interest," she said.
Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act:
With the exception of the historical information contained in this release, the matters described herein contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties that may individually or mutually impact the matters herein described, including but not limited to product acceptance, the ability to continually obtained increased orders of its products, the ability to meet installation goals, economic, competitive, governmental impacts, whether its pending patents will be granted or defendable; validity of intellectual property and patents of USA, the ability of USA to license its patents, the ability of USA to commercialize its developmental products, technological and/or other factors, which could cause actual results or revenues to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements.
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