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Octane Software Announces New Internet Relationship Management Suite

Octane 2000 – First iRM Solution to Manage Interactions between Customers, Partners, and Agents in the Internet Economy

San Mateo, Calif. – December 13, 1999 – Octane Software, Inc.™, the leading provider of Internet Relationship Management (iRM) applications and infrastructure, today announced Octane 2000™, its new Internet-based customer care suite providing service, sales, and marketing functionality for the Digital 1000™. Built with a state-of-the-art Internet application infrastructure, Octane 2000 enables companies to manage business-critical relationships between customers, partners, agents and other users over a variety of channels, including Web, email, chat, phone and fax. In addition, Octane 2000 incorporates out-of-the-box interfaces and tools for linking its iRM suite to leading e-commerce engines. The new release incorporates all the necessary application functionality and infrastructure to support business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies including self- and assisted-service, order management, campaign management, as well as enhancements in email management, CTI integration and call control.

iRM Advances eBusiness Relationships
The rapid adoption of the Internet provides Web-savvy businesses with a compelling opportunity to build strong relationships with all constituents that impact the company ¾ customers, partners and connected sales and service personnel. This adoption and the resulting broad influence of the Internet has led to a new market opportunity called Internet Relationship Management (iRM). iRM is a super-set of customer relationship management (CRM) that takes into account all influential entities¾including the customer¾that impact a company's success. In addition, iRM does not focus on any one medium (e.g., telephone) as the de facto channel for building relationships. Companies deploying an iRM solution, such as Octane 2000, can incorporate all communication mediums including the Web, email, chat, phone and fax in one integrated solution. iRM goes beyond CRM by not focusing on just one aspect of the relationship¾such as customer service¾ but rather blends all the important functions of sales, marketing and service into one comprehensive, Internet-based customer care solution.

"Relationship management applications must allow companies to manage all business-related interactions—whether from the customer, a channel partner or an employee," said Robert Mirani, director of CRM Strategies at the Yankee Group. "By integrating all business interactions within a single Internet framework, companies can offer their constituents the most up-to-date information on their own terms. This flexibility and consistency is a true value-add as companies competing in the Internet era try to differentiate themselves and capture customer loyalty."

Octane 2000 – Enhanced Applications and Infrastructure for E-Business Leaders
The Octane 2000 iRM suite is comprised of two primary components: Octane 2000 iCare™, an iRM application for performing service, sales and marketing; and Octane 2000 iBusiness™, an Internet application infrastructure providing a robust, extensible platform to meet the customer care challenges of e-businesses. Octane 2000 is the next generation of the award-winning Octane 99, released in March 1999 and purchased by numerous Digital 1000 leaders.

The iCare application provides e-businesses with a single system to effectively manage every aspect of their relationships with customers and partners. iCare incorporates all the functionality necessary to manage the modern contact center in a bundled system with shared data and business processes. iBusiness is the industry-leading Internet application infrastructure upon which iCare is based. Featuring a high-performance business process engine, multi-channel access, integration to third-party systems, real-time business intelligence and a visual development environment, iBusiness offers the flexibility, open architecture and scalability demanded by today's e-businesses.

TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTEC), a global leader in large scale call centers, is capitalizing on the e-commerce trend and plans to deploy Octane's iRM solution across some 11,500 agent desktops worldwide. "We chose Octane 2000 because it is the only product on the market that supports multiple channels of access," said Milos Djokovic, chief technology officer at TeleTech. "Octane's robust architecture will enable easy integration with our back-end commerce system¾a key decision factor as we continue to roll-out Cybercare, our new e-care solution."

iCare - Next Generation Relationship Management for the Digital 1000
Core to Octane 2000 is iCare, Octane's flagship relationship management application specifically designed to meet the needs of e-businesses. iCare supports service, sales and marketing activities with features like customer order management, request tracking, Web-based self-service, information tracking, contact management, knowledge base, email response, call control, product pricing, campaign management and much more. In addition, iCare is designed for use by multiple user groups, each having access to particular functionality depending on their role:

iCare Center™ is designed for the power user, providing an advanced and efficient user interface for customer care agents, connected sales reps, outsourcers and even operations partners. With iCare Center, users have all the tools necessary to efficiently and effectively manage customer interactions across a broad spectrum of channels and business functions. iCare Center now includes a new user interface, robust email response management and integrated call control.

iCare Portal™ enables customers and partners to perform Web-based self-help. Users can place bids, check the status of an order, log a service request, edit their profile and perform other routine self-service functions without requiring an agent.

iCare Strategy™ is "mission control" for the business manager or analyst¾providing real-time contact center monitoring and historical reporting, design and management of outbound campaigns or inbound treatments, agent role configuration, and other managerial activities. With iCare Strategy, managers can make informed business decisions based on the critical customer and enterprise data gathered in Octane 2000.

iBusiness Architecture - Linking it all Together
Unlike most CRM solutions that only provide a customer contact application, typically telephone-centric, Octane's iBusiness delivers a proven and robust Internet application infrastructure based on Internet standards rather than traditional client server-based architectures. The core components of Octane 2000's iBusiness provide a well-rounded set of integrated business systems tuned for efficient and scalable performance. These key technology components include:

iBusiness Transaction Server™ is a Net-native business process engine. With business processes driving the application behavior, not customized code, system definition, customization and maintenance are streamlined. Individual components of the system work independently and are "cluster aware" allowing Octane 2000 to scale to meet the needs of an organization as it extends and as transaction volumes grow.

iBusiness Channels™ enable users to interact with Octane 2000 over virtually any communication channel. iBusiness Channels allow consistent delivery of the same business processes across all channels of communication. Customers are guaranteed a uniform high-value experience regardless of their chosen method of communication. Because all interactions are tracked within the same system, switching between contact channels is possible at any point in the process, without disrupting the service experience. iBusiness Channels includes Web, email, telephone, fax and chat.

Web Channel enhancements offer businesses pre-packaged templates of self-service Web pages for customers and partners. The pages are dynamically generated using HTML user interfaces, leveraging content caching and static pages for maximum scalability.

Email Channel is significantly enhanced to provide interaction through a comprehensive email management system that is integrated with automated service processes and customer, partner and agent history stored from previous interactions. Emails sent to a company regarding a sales promotion he/she saw will be automatically categorized and integrated with the existing data about that customer—including what products the customer has and his or her personal interaction preferences.

Chat Channel, the newest communication module within the iBusiness Channels family, allows customers, partners and agents to interact in real time. By offering this real-time interaction, companies can significantly increase completed commerce transactions and improve customer satisfaction. The Chat Channel enables companies to humanize and personalize interactions with their customers and partners for increased loyalty and retention.

Telephony Channel now enables companies to incorporate leading computer telephony integration (CTI) middleware into their iRM system. With integrated call control, Octane 2000 customers can now answer, transfer and communicate with callers¾all from a single desktop screen. The enhanced telephony integration incorporates call data with information repositories, enabling agents to be instantly prepared, via a screen pop, with the caller's name, background history, and any sales or service opportunities. For Octane 2000 customers, Telephony Channel is an out-of-the-box interface to leading CTI middleware from vendors such as Genesys, GeoTel and Interactive Intelligence.

iBusiness Connectors™ are new components that connect the Octane system to other systems that contribute to the relationship management process. Octane offers both pre-packaged connectors, such as an XML Connector, as well as development tools for building connectors to popular and proprietary e-commerce, legacy and other third-party systems.

iBusiness Intelligence™ enhancements enable the data transformation, reporting, and OLAP services necessary to uncover valuable insights that improve organizational efficiency and responsiveness. Octane Business Intelligence collects critical customer data and stores it as actionable information. This repository of knowledge serves as the basis for the iCare applications' real-time decision making capabilities.

iBusiness Studio™, a powerful modeling and design application, includes enhancements such as project management. iBusiness Studio minimizes the time and effort spent developing, modifying and maintaining complex business processes and application functionality by applying the drag and drop simplicity to the creation of "best-in-class" processes. These business models can be instantly deployed throughout the system providing the immediate response required by today's business. A library of packaged business models defines the out-of-the-box application and simplifies the customization needed to meet the unique challenges faced as the business grows and changes.

Availability and Pricing
Orders for Octane 2000 are now being accepted with shipments to begin January 2000. Pricing starts at US$2,500 per iCare Center user.

About Octane Software
Octane Software, Inc. is the leading provider of Internet Relationship Management (iRM) applications and infrastructure, supporting the success of today's electronic businesses - The Digital 1000. Founded by a team of customer relationship management (eCRM) industry experts, Octane is focused exclusively on providing its Digital 1000 customers with real-time, interactive customer care to compete in the new e-business economy. With Octane 2000, fast-moving companies are experiencing increased customer acquisition and retention, along with improved operating efficiencies and greater competitive power. Octane's customers include leading e-businesses such as Critical Path, e-assist, SEND.COM and Switchboard.com. Headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., with sales offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Phoenix and London, Octane can be reached toll free at 1-877-4OCTANE, via e-mail at info@octanesoftware.com, or on the Web at www.octanesoftware.com.

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Octane, Octane Software, Octane 99, Octane 2000, Digital 1000, iCare, iCare Center, iCare Portal, iCare Strategy, iBusiness, iBusiness Transaction Server, iBusiness Channels, iBusiness Connectors, iBusiness Intelligence and iBusiness Studio are trademarks of Octane Software, Inc. Other company and product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Editorial Contact:
Jim Lambert
Octane Software, Inc.
(650) 295-6242
jlambert@octanesoftware.com

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