NEW YORK, June 30 -- Vivit, the independent, non-profit, users group for the HP software community has awarded its first annual Vivit Local Chapter Award to the Mid-Atlantic Chapter established in 1995. The award was given to Jim Copio on June 18, 2008 at the Leader Council Meeting held at HP Software Universe last week. The award criterion encompasses all the value and skills that Vivit strives to bring to the HP Software users in the local community setting.

The Mid-Atlantic Chapter was one of the first Vivit chapters and one of the first to integrate with the HP Software acquisitions, incorporating the legacy OpenView, Mercury and Peregrine user groups. Jim Copio became co-leader of the chapter in 1999 and from 2001 - 2007 became the core leader of the group and was extremely flexible in supporting all leaders who joined the group.

Donna Farmer, Executive Director of Vivit said, "I would like to congratulate Mr. Copio for his hard work and dedication in starting the Mid-Atlantic Chapter and growing it into the successful chapter that it is today. We hope that this will be an incentive for other chapters as we continue to grow chapter activity around the world."

"The goal of this award is to encourage our leaders to do the best job they can in providing value to the HP Software user community in their region," said Rocky Pisto, Vivit Membership Chairman. "As Vivit representatives, our job is to help support our local chapters and recommend best practices."

"It is truly an honor to receive such a designation. Especially knowing that I am in the company of so many wonderful chapter leaders, each providing significant value and enthusiasm to their respective chapters all year long," said Jim Copio, Strategic Account Manager of Whitlock.

About Vivit

Vivit is a non-profit corporation founded in 1993 (as OpenView Forum) by customers of Hewlett-Packard's Software products to represent the interests of HP Software customers, developers, and partners world-wide. Vivit represents and serves the broad HP Software Community (including OpenView, Mercury, Peregrine, Radia, and more) and is the endorsed HP Software users group. Vivit has 8,360 members and growing every week representing all areas of Business and Industry. For more information about Vivit, log on to the organizations web site at http://www.vivit-worldwide-org.