ASTAware Releases Third Quarter Results

Toronto, Ontario, Canada - December 22, 2000 -

ASTAware Technologies INC. ("ASTAware"/the "Company") is pleased to report upon the results of its third quarter ending October 31, 2000. These results reflect management's ongoing review of current operations. As a result of the review, management has focused its attention on the key goal of becoming cash-flow positive over the next fiscal quarter. In order to accomplish this, significant focus will be placed on enhancing the company's current product-line to meet market demands control overall costs and drive increased sales. As an indicator of this focus, a positive trend is emerging with an increase in revenues by 51% over the third quarter of prior year, and a reduction in costs of 10% over the same period.

During the past quarter, ASTAware re-evaluated the maturity of its product-line and concluded that some enhancements were required in order to improve sales and achieve its profitability goals. To that end, it has embarked on adding some valuable feature to the product-line, for which a 'beta' client has been enrolled for requirements specification and product testing. We expect these enhancements to enable us to increase the value of our product and provide us with opportunities to upgrade our existing customers, leading to improved margins. ASTAware intends to release the new product features to the market in the upcoming fourth quarter.

Concurrently with the product improvement initiative, we have re-tooled our development team with enhanced Java-software engineers and project management capabilities. We expect that these changes will enhance the ability and efficiency of our development team.

The following are the results for the third quarter ending October 31, 2000, and the comparative results for the same period the previous year:

	Quarter Ending	Quarter Ending
	Oct 31/00	Oct 31/99
Sales	$ 118,872	$ 78,964
Expenses:
Selling, marketing and operating	31,846	43,830
General and administrative	113,627	113,719
Amortization	117,313	99,134
	$ (143,414)	$ (177,719)
Interest & Financing	(52,425)	(25,000)
Research and development	(27,189)	(53,837)
Net Loss	$ (232,028)	$ (256,556)
Shares Outstanding (weighted average)	9,960,164	9,930,164
Loss per share	(0.02)	(0.03)

For the three months ended October 31, 2000, ASTAware revenues increased to $118,872 versus revenues of $78,964 for the three months ended October 31, 1999. Revenues for this period increased by 10% as compared to the preceding quarter ended July 31, 2000. Although the revenues during the third quarter were below management expectations, ASTAware expanded its customer base by adding 10 new customers, including, among others, were Parity Computing, Lunar & Planetary Institute, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and Sheshunof Information Services. The Company showed a loss of ($223,028) for the period, as compared to a loss of ($256,556) for the third quarter ended October 31, 1999.

Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased to $144,973 for the third quarter ended October 31, 2000 versus $157,549 for the quarter ended October 31, 1999. Compared to the previous quarter, these expenses decreased by 35%. This decrease is primarily attributable to the focus on rationalizing of costs, while concurrently enhancing our product line.

ASTAware is a software development organization that focuses on developing and marketing customized, Java-based search solutions. ASTAware leverages it's core competency of information search and retrieval to provide its users with custom, Java-based solutions to efficiently access information regardless of whether it resides on a CD-ROM, DVD or online. ASTAware's solutions facilitate an orderly and cost-effective transition for our customers from paper-based information to either CD or fully web-enabled on-line storage and retrieval. For more information on ASTAware's products and services, contact the company at its websites: http://www.astaware.com, http://www.searchkey.com, or e-mail: ejewell@astaware.com.