Press Release
DIAGNOS INC. ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC ALLIANCE WITH AVOMARK FOR PROVIDING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS TO THE FINANCIAL/BROKERAGE COMMUNITY.
Montreal, Canada — April 24, 2001 — DIAGNOS Inc. (DGN-CDNX), a leader in knowledge extraction artificial intelligence, announced today that it has finalized an exclusive distribution agreement with Avomark, a Quebec corporation that provides courses to the financial/brokerage community to meet mandatory training requirements. Initially, Avomark will utilize the Internet-based training application to impact members within the financial and brokerage community for meeting and managing the provincial mandatory training requirements.
Developed over a ten year period by a team of scientists at Lyon University II led by Dr. Djamel Zighed, the Company’s chief technology officer, DIAGNOS’ unique software tool for Customer Education Management (CEM) will enable Avomark to train thousands of security brokers and financial planners/advisors, evaluate their results, and provide those results to the appropriate regulators and/or association.
“We continue to focus on providing quality training solutions for the financial and brokerage community plus interfacing with the appropriate regulatory agencies who monitor that community,” said Line Tousignant, President of Avomark. “Working with the world class technologists at DIAGNOS will positively impact the quality and time required to meet the annual mandatory training requirements. As the bi-annual provincial mandatory training requirements increase from 30 to 60 hours in January 2002, E- Learning provides the individual broker or planner with Web-based alternatives to satisfy those requirements economically.”
According to IDC, Web-based corporate learning is expected to enjoy explosive growth, reaching US$11.4 billion by 2003. Merrill Lynch Global Growth Group predicts as much as 40 cents of every dollar spent on in-person corporate learning is for travel costs. Analysts say organizations can achieve 40 to 60 per cent cost savings when comparing instructor-led with technology-delivered courses.
“The unique differentiator is that Avomark will be able to create, modify, control, and maintain the on-line training environment at the different levels within the financial and brokerage communities at a fraction of today’s cost.” stated Robert Dishaw, General Manager of DIAGNOS’ I-Learning Division.
About DIAGNOS Inc.
DIAGNOS Inc., an international company with offices in Europe, Canada, and the United States, is engaged in the development and marketing of proprietary knowledge extraction solutions that allow intelligent analysis of text, numerical and image databases. DIAGNOS is the only known developer of multimedia mining technology. The company’s unique software tools were developed over a ten year period by a team of scientists at Lyon University II led by Dr. Djamel Zighed, the chief technology officer. Current products address the telecommunications, education, financial services and health care markets. More information can be located at http://www.diagnos.ca.
About Avomark
Avomark develops and markets training courses for security brokers and financial planners/advisors across Quebec. The training courses are developed to meet the annual mandatory provincial training requirements for the brokerage and financial communities. More information can be located at http://www.avomark- conseil.com.
For Immediate Release
Statements in this press release other than purely historical information, including estimates, projections and statements relating to the Company’s future plans and objectives and expected operating results, and statements of the assumptions underlying such statements, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements contained herein are based on certain assumptions which may not be correct. They are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties incident to the Company’s business which are described in the reports and statements filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including (among others) those listed in the Company’s Form 10-K. Please refer to page 1 of the Company’s 1999 Form 10-K for a more complete description of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements in this press release.
For additional information:
Andre Larente
(514) 906-2602
President
DIAGNOS Inc. andre.larente@diagnos.ca
Eric Boyd (514) 286-0909
François Morin
Morin des Roberts
(514) 289-8688 francois@morindesroberts.com
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