EADS TO SUPPORT SAIC IN NATO's SUPREME ALLIED COMMAND TRANSFORMATION EXPERIMENTATION CAMPAIGN

Washington, DC/Norfolk, VA/Munich, Germany, 11 May 2004

EADS, a world leader in aerospace and defense, today announced that EADS North America has been selected as part of the Science Applications International Corporation's (SAIC) winning team selected by North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) Headquarters’ to support it's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) Experimentation Campaign.

The SAIC/EADS team will be providing engineering and technical services in the areas of concept definition, research, analysis, and assessment for alternative transformation resolution. Working as an integrated part of the NATO Headquarters' SACT staff, the SAIC/EADS team will assist with developing recommendations based on joint warfighting experimentation and improving interoperability to reduce redundancy, synchronize technology fielding, develop joint strategic, operational, and if required, tactical concepts.

“We are excited about the opportunity to team with SAIC and bring the full capabilities of EADS to the challenge of NATO transformation,” said Ralph Crosby, chairman and CEO of EADS North America.

Tom Enders, CEO of EADS Defense and Security Systems Division added, “Our System Design Center’s capabilities are directly applicable to this new task. It is exciting to be involved in the first industrial project of Allied Command Transformation.”

Personnel from both SAIC and EADS working on the experimentation program will be located at NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation headquarters, based in Norfolk, VA., and will be a part of NATO's Joint Experimentation, Exercise and Assessment (JEEA) team. The JEEA team is tasked with assisting with the transformation of NATO through a series of experiments to refine and bring new operational concepts to operational maturity.

The majority of these resources for EADS will be provided by the EADS Defense and Security Systems business units, which have extensive experience in solving the technical challenges of defense transformation, in particular that of coalition interoperability – one of the prime drivers in NATO’s transformation program. EADS’ SACT team will provide a vital link to the diverse and deep technical resources and capabilities of the EADS Group.

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About SAIC (www.saic.com)

SAIC is the nation's largest employee-owned research and engineering company, providing information technology, systems integration and eSolutions to commercial and government customers. SAIC engineers and scientists work to solve complex technical problems in national and homeland security, energy, the environment, space, telecommunications, health care, and logistics. With annual revenues of $6.7 billion, SAIC and its subsidiaries, including Telcordia Technologies, have more than 43,000 employees at offices in more than 150 cities worldwide.

About EADS (www.eads.net)

EADS is the second largest aerospace and defense company in the world with revenues of 30.1 billion Euros in 2003, and a workforce of more than 100,000. It is a systems integrator and as such is one of the few companies worldwide capable of combining various products and technologies to form complete systems and offering the associated services. The EADS Group includes the aircraft manufacturer AIRBUS, the world's largest helicopter supplier, Eurocopter and the joint venture MBDA, the second largest missile producer in the global market. EADS is the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium, is the prime contractor for the Ariane launcher, develops the A400M military transport aircraft and is the largest industrial partner for the European satellite navigation system, Galileo. EADS has more than 70 sites in France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain, and is active in many regions worldwide, including the United States, Russia and Asia.

Diane Murphy, VP Communications
EADS North America
Tel.: (202) 776-0988
mailto: Diane.murphy@eadsnorthamerica.com