5 Minute Guide to Business Software

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.   27-MAR-2006  Oracle today announced that its Siebel CRM applications have been positioned in the Leader Quadrant of the 2006 Gartner Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Customer Service Contact Center Magic Quadrant.1

The annual Gartner Magic Quadrant provides guidance for organizations that are seeking to purchase, replace, or upgrade a customer service and support (CSS) solution. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant positions vendors in a particular market segment based on their completeness of vision and their ability to execute on that vision.2 According to Gartner, Leaders in this category demonstrate customer service, support market strength and have the ability to affect market trends in all the categories of criteria on which they are evaluated.3

“We believe Siebel’s placement as a leader in this Gartner Magic Quadrant is recognition that Oracle offers the most comprehensive service suite in the market, and delivers proven capabilities for contact center and service organizations,” said Oracle Vice President of Service Products, Mike Betzer. Now that Siebel CRM is part of the Oracle CRM product family, we are committed to protect Siebel customer investments and extend a superior ownership experience through new offerings, such as our industry-leading Lifetime Support Policy.”

Siebel Meets Extensive Criteria for Leader Position in Quadrant
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant positions vendors in a particular market segment based on their vision and ability to execute that vision. Gartner conducted a thorough evaluation of select customer service contact center vendors using criteria including4:

* At least 15 customer references for customer service and support (CSS) functionality in the contact center
* At least five new customers for CSS in the past four quarters
* Must have generated at least $10 million in revenue for CSS in the past four quarters
* Sufficient professional services to fulfill current and future customer demand during the next six months, and at least enough cash to fund a year of operations at the current burn rate
* A customer base and operations on at least two continents
* Technology supports extension to cross-channel customer service without the need to code in a new development environment
* The software provider is moving markets based on its software and strategy
The full 2006 Gartner CRM Customer Service Contact Center Magic Quadrant report can be found at the following URL - http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/oracle/137921.html

About The Magic Quadrant
* Magic Quadrant Disclaimer

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted March 1, 2006 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose

Wednesday, May 3, 2006 — Halifax, NS, Canada

Salesboom.com, industry leader of pre-integrated on demand CRM and ERP unveiled Salesboom Version 8. Packed with new AJAX and RIA features to save users time, v8 also includes Human Resource Management, Employee Management, Commissions and Expense Management, unlimited custom tabs and fields and over 120 new features. Building on our all inclusive Software-as-a-Service that includes pre-integrated front and back-office software on demand, Salesboom v8 stretches the boundaries of business computing by delivering an offering not yet seen in the on demand CRM space. Salesboom v8 will be a no cost, seamless upgrade for all current Salesboom customers, registered 30-day web trial users.

Much work on v8 also went into upgrading the customization and Integration capabilities of the on demand platform that powers Salesboom CRM. “I would be lying if I told you this release was not our biggest release to date, with v8 we feel we have built the foundation to graduate Salesboom to new heights.” Our partners and customers are ecstatic says Rami Hamodah, President and Co-founder of Salesboom.

Adding Rich Internet Application (RIA) components as part of the CRM makes Salesboom more intuitive and time saving for users, which increases adoption of the CRM. With many new features such as Salesboom Suggest, Contact and Lead Rolodex, and AJAX Calendar Salesboom users are empowered with greater control and maneuverability of information while cutting down on navigation time and page refreshes. “With v8 one of our main goals was to orient our products to look and feel more like a desktop application, providing our users with greater fluency of movement and data control”, commented Troy Muise, CEO and Co-founder of Salesboom. Our customers are the guiding light, and we are proud to fulfill their requests such as Expense Tracking, HR, Employee Management, Mass Data Management, and enhanced Mail Merge features that will further simplify our users day.

The industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of business communications delivers unmatched value, flexibility, simplicity and choice to mid-sized businesses

INTEROP 2006 - LAS VEGAS BOOTH 1548 – Avaya Inc., (NYSE:AV) a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, today increases the options and ease with which mid-size businesses can deploy intelligent communications with the addition of three new solutions to the company’s portfolio. Targeted for companies with between 100-500 employees, the solutions extend the features and functions of Avaya’s IP Telephony-based communications applications portfolio with the simplicity of use, implementation, administration and maintenance that mid-size businesses require.
The new solutions include:

* Avaya MultiVantage® Express – delivers the most robust set of communications applications in the industry in a single-server solution, including IP telephony, messaging, contact center and mobility applications
* Avaya On Demand - provides Avaya’s marketing-leading, intelligent communications as a service, including IP Telephony, contact center and messaging, in a low-risk, highly-flexible per-seat, per-month subscription model
* Avaya S8400 Media Server – provides a migration path to the expanded power of Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony for existing DEFINITY® ProLogix, IP600 or S8100 server customers

All of the new solutions offer a lower total cost of ownership while providing immediate benefits through greater productivity. Mid-size businesses are better positioned to manage risk and ensure business continuity with built-in mobility, industry-leading reliability and the flexibility to meet evolving or changing business needs.

Key to the needs of the mid-size business is the simplicity with which the most robust set of communications solutions in the industry can be implemented and maintained. Avaya MultiVantage Express – designed with substantial input from Avaya BusinessPartners to meet the requirements of this market – can be up and running in as little as two hours, and a single license provides users with a full set of communications applications that make employees and processes more efficient and effective.
Avaya on Demand provides a turnkey, hosted solution that is pre-configured and pre-tested prior to implementation, and thus mitigating risk in migrating to IP telephony and advanced applications. Most Avaya on Demand core telephony equipment is housed and managed in a secure, off-site Avaya data center for hands-off, worry-free integration and management.
For financial flexibility, the solutions are offered through a range of purchasing options - from purchase, lease or rental, and in the case of Avaya on Demand, a flexible ‘pay as you go, pay as you grow’ model. “With the addition of these new mid-market solutions, Avaya now has the most complete and comprehensive portfolio of communications solutions in the industry,” said Frank Dzubeck, president, Communications Network Architects, Inc. “There’s something for every channel partner and packaged the way customers want to purchase, manage and evolve their communications.”
The solutions build on Avaya existing portfolio of offers for mid-sized businesses, including:

* Avaya Contact Center Express – A multi-channel, high-volume contact center solution designed to provide intelligent routing and computer telephony integration for medium-sized contact centers.
* Avaya Communication Manager and Avaya S8300 Media Server – A cost-effective, “ala carte” pure IP telephony solution that enables mid-sized businesses to incrementally add applications as their business needs require.

Avaya solutions for Mid-Sized Businesses, along with other advanced applications from Avaya, will be on display at Avaya Booth #1548 at Interop 2006 in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, May 2 – 4, 2006. For all information on Avaya’s strategy, product and services announcements at the show, look at our virtual press kit at www.avaya.com/media.

Robust reporting, easy customization, continuous innovation just some benefits of switching to Parature

MCLEAN, VA – May 23, 2006 - Parature, provider of award-winning, on demand customer support software, announced today that the company is offering current Talisma customers free data migration and professional services set-up when switching to Parature’s Customer Support Solution. Organizations seeking support software that can be customized to their specific needs, includes powerful reporting, and is supported by a professional services team who care about their success should take advantage of this offer.

Talisma customers would benefit from Parature’s highly customizable and easy-to-use customer service software that enables companies to configure the solution to their specific business processes and workflows. No technical skills are required for customization, so support administrators can adjust the software themselves instead of relying on their IT departments or a professional services team.

As a hosted customer support software solution, Parature delivers innovative technology for customer service management right from the web through any browser. This award-winning customer support solution enables organizations to provide seamless customer service across all channels – including phone, email and the web. Whether an organization needs service management to track projects, a knowledge base to answer commonly asked questions, or reports to analyze metrics, Parature is comprised of a number of integrated modules to meet business needs. These hosted customer support and management software solutions are customizable to unique business needs, fast to deploy, and quick to show results.

Robust reporting capabilities are a key differentiator for Parature, as the company recognizes the need for support organizations to keep close tabs on many different areas without spending time aggregating and analyzing information. The reporting included in Parature’s customer service software reaches across the entire solution platform, enabling support personnel to quickly create custom reports analyzing any information in the system using the simple drag-and-drop technology to choose parameters. Reports can be in raw data formats or in 15 different graphical formats, as well as exported with the click of a button to Microsoft Excel.

“We believe that clients who switch to Parature will benefit from our continuous innovation, which comes mostly from listening closely to our client’s suggestions and implementing them as new features,” said Duke Chung, CEO, Parature. “Built in a .NET platform, we are able to quickly rollout new features on a quarterly basis to our client base. We’re consistently focused on bringing added value to our clients and their end users, and we put a ton of effort behind ensuring our client’s success both online through ParaUnity, our online user community, or offline through our Professional Services team and local user groups.”

To learn more about the free data migration and set-up offer for Talisma customers, please visit www.parature.com/landing/talisma

RIGHTNOW ACQUIRES SALESNET TO ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE SOLUTIONS

RightNow Acquires Significant Sales Automation Expertise

BOZEMAN, MONT. (May 22, 2006) - RightNow® Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNOW) today announced the acquisition of Salesnet, Inc., an on demand software firm focused on sales workflow automation. The acquisition will accelerate RightNow’s customer experience management development efforts by combining RightNow’s patented knowledge foundation with Salesnet’s sophisticated workflow engine. With the acquisition, RightNow adds 26 employees and a dozen off-shore development contractors with a long history of delivering sales automation solutions to mid-market and enterprise customers, including deployments of up to 2500 users.

“Our acquisition of Salesnet brings substantial sales workflow domain expertise to our business, accelerates our roadmap by more than a year and adds hundreds of customers to our client base,” Greg Gianforte, founder and chief executive officer at RightNow, said. “RightNow will continue to build out its capabilities to offer organizations solutions and expertise to create a competitively differentiated customer experience throughout every customer interaction channel.”

Jonathan Tang, president and co-founder of Salesnet, will become vice president of sales solutions at RightNow. “This is a great opportunity for Salesnet customers. Joining RightNow will enable us to extend and realize our vision much more quickly. RightNow’s strategy and roadmap is a direction that provides our customers a significant long-term competitive advantage,” said Tang.

Salesnet was an early pioneer in on demand sales force automation with particular expertise in successfully implementing sales methodologies in sophisticated environments. Salesnet brings to RightNow an increased domain expertise in customer facing sales functions, as well as significant vertical expertise in financial services and business-to-business.

“Salesnet excels in providing users with the sophisticated tools needed to handle more complex selling environments,” Denis Pombriant, managing principal at Beagle Research Group, said. “When customers need to move beyond simple contact management to standardize practices for sales forces across geographies and divisions, they look to Salesnet. The combination of RightNow and Salesnet will create a powerful solution set for small and large organizations that see value in leveraging a patented knowledge foundation with a sophisticated work-flow engine in the sales channel to deliver superior customer experiences.”

RightNow will support Salesnet’s existing customers and provide a seamless upgrade path to much broader customer experience management solutions. Initial integrations between the Salesnet application and RightNow applications will be completed this summer with all major features expected to be included by summer of 2007. Rich Perkett, chief technology officer and co-founder of Salesnet, will join RightNow as a director of product development, responsible for the integration and expansion of Salesnet’s technology into RightNow’s solution.

“Salesnet’s products continue to be a key factor to our sales success. We are excited to see a market leader like RightNow acquire Salesnet to further enhance customer value and long term investment in the platform,” said O. John Groebl, IT project manager for American Express Incentive Services. “We look forward to having the ability to roll out a full complement of customer experience management capabilities offered as a result of RightNow’s acquisition. This is a positive development for us and re-affirms the selection we made with Salesnet.”

Under the terms of the acquisition, RightNow has acquired Salesnet through an all-cash merger. RightNow expects the transaction to be neutral to cash flow from operations and dilutive to GAAP EPS in 2006. Salesnet’s corporate office in Boston will become RightNow’s Boston office and will continue to include development, sales, marketing and support functions.