The central reservations system enables customers to receive a confirmed reservation at any of Southern Sun's 54 hotels within two minutes, either directly on the telephone or through the global distribution systems, compared with a two-day wait with the old semi-automated TSR system.

"This definitely sets us apart from the competition," said Helder Pereira, managing director of Southern Sun.  "We have an inventory of 9,000 rooms spread across four countries.  We can now confirm reservations from anywhere in the world almost immediately.  In addition, we have comprehensive real-time data on all activities in the hotels, enabling us to know who the guests are, whether they have checked in or out, and so on."

"The detailed customer information helps Southern Sun to deal with group bookings effectively, and allows it to target offerings to selected customers.  Southern Sun can now handle its room stock far more efficiently, and will be able to implement yield management packages," said Barbara Clift, IBM's Travel Related Services Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

MAI Systems Corp., an Irvine-based software house, is providing its CLS software for the Southern Sun central reservations host and 38 of the hotels.  "This ground-breaking deal demonstrates the effectiveness and functionality of our CLS property management and central reservations systems, hosted in the IBM AIX environment," said MAI President and Chief Executive Officer George Bayz.

"This has got to be one of the slickest, most efficient large system implementations I have ever seen," said Pereira.  "Through the joint partnership of IBM, MAI and Southern Sun employees and project managers, we were able to 'go live' seven days early."

Southern Sun operates 41 hotels under Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Inter-Continental franchises, plus 13 own-branded hotels and resorts.  As well as its South African properties, it has hotels in Zambia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.  The company is part of South African Breweries, which signed a major information technology outsourcingdeal with IBM in 1994.  IBM's Global Travel and Transportation Industry Solutions Unit provides a broad range of products, services and integrated solutions to all segments of travel and transportation, including hotels and other travel-related services, airlines, railroad and freight companies.

Hotel Information Systems, a division of MAI Systems Corp., is a worldwide provider of total information systems to the hospitality industry.  With headquarters in Irvine, Hotel Information Systems has offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico as well as a worldwide distributor network.  Hotel Information Systems sells, installs and supports a wide variety of automation solutions including LodgingTouch, Paragon and CLS Software.  Offering superior performance and leading-edge technology, these feature-rich solutions operate on Windows NT, OS/400 and UNIX platforms and include modules for Front Office, Back Office, Point-Of-Sale (POS), Central Reservations Systems (CRS) and Central Information Systems (CIS). 

(c) MAI Systems Corp., MAI, CLS, Paragon and Hotel Information Systems are registered trademarks of MAI Systems Corp.  All other products and services are trademarks of their respective companies.

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, carrying out strategic relationship, competition and technological change; obtaining customer orders; delays in product development; lack of enforceability of patents, copy rights and proprietary rights; changes in business strategy or development plans; and other factors set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 1997. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The company undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.