Customers Embrace RightNow's SmartHosting Architecture for Value, Choice, Reliability, and Convenience  (email this article)

BOZEMAN, Mont., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- RightNow® Technologies (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies) (Nasdaq: RNOW - News) today announced the 3,000th upgrade of its on demand CRM solutions. The milestone highlights the broad acceptance and competitive superiority of RightNow's enterprise-class SmartHosting(TM) architecture, which features Upgrade-On-Demand(TM) capabilities, data mirroring, real-time monitoring, and other functionality designed to provide value, choice, reliability, and convenience for RightNow's customers worldwide.

Other on demand CRM software vendors force all of their customers to upgrade their applications on the same day in a single "Frankenstein Switch" conversion. This takes control of the upgrade process away from the customer-disrupting their business and exposing them to significant risks if the upgrade if forced upon them during seasonal peaks, product launches, or other critical times. With RightNow's Upgrade-On-Demand, on the other hand, customers can upgrade whenever they choose-allowing them to schedule ample time for user training and the testing of any application integrations and/or customizations. Customers can also postpone or cancel upgrades at anytime.

"With SmartHosting and Upgrade-On-Demand, we have been able to eliminate the costs and headaches of IT infrastructure ownership and gained additional reliability, performance, security, and control," said Doug Dostal, Briggs Corporation's vice president of IT and eProducts -- who performed the 3,000th RightNow upgrade by migrating from RightNow CRM(TM) 7.0 to RightNow CRM 7.5. "A forced upgrade would be an enormous hardship for us and could potentially compromise our ability to provide our customers with non-stop world-class service. RightNow provides us with enterprise-class control in a hosted environment."

Upgrade-On-Demand also gives customers the ability to set up "pilot" instances of the upgrade populated with their live data and business rules before going live. As a result, RightNow customers can reap all the benefits of the on demand software model, while maintaining the same control of their enterprise applications as they would have with conventional on-premise implementations.

RightNow is able to provide Upgrade-On-Demand capabilities because its SmartHosting architecture is engineered for true multi-version multi-tenancy. That is, each instance of RightNow's CRM software is independently implemented and managed, rather than bundled in with hundreds or thousands of other customer implementations.

SmartHosting's other management features include real-time usage reporting, disk space monitoring, and a Customer Success Index that allows customers to compare their implementation against RightNow's best practices benchmark.

RightNow is the only on demand CRM software vendor currently providing customers with such a complete and flexible enterprise-class hosting architecture.

"As more organizations embrace the on demand model, flexible upgrade options and rich insight into the software environment will be critical requirements -- especially for larger companies that are unwilling to relinquish control of their enterprise applications," Sheryl Kingstone, program manager at The Yankee Group, said. "RightNow has consistently focused on offering key customer-criteria such as providing customers with this essential control over and visibility into their on demand applications."

RightNow has been providing Upgrade-On-Demand, data mirroring, real-time monitoring and other key features of its SmartHosting architecture since 1997.

These features have helped RightNow maintain a customer renewal rate of more than 90 percent, which is higher than that reported by any other CRM vendor.

"Only applications that have been designed from the ground up for multi-version multi-tenancy can give on demand customers the control, flexibility, and visibility they require," Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder at RightNow, said. "The functional superiority of RightNow's SmartHosting architecture, including Upgrade-On-Demand, uniquely enables us to meet the sophisticated implementation requirements of both middle-market and Global 2000 businesses-and provides a clear competitive advantage."

About RightNow Technologies, Inc.

RightNow (Nasdaq: RNOW - News) provides organizations with industry-leading on demand CRM solutions to build customer-focused businesses. RightNow's acclaimed technology, comprehensive services and commitment to customer success deliver high returns on investment for its customers. More than 1,300 organizations worldwide use RightNow solutions including British Airways, British Telecom, Cisco Systems, Continental Tire North America, John Deere, Nikon and the Social Security Administration. Founded in 1997, RightNow is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, with additional offices in North America, Europe and Asia. For further information, please visit www.rightnow.com.

RightNow is a registered trademark of RightNow Technologies, Inc. NASDAQ is a registered trademark of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

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This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.

The risks and uncertainties referred to above include, but are not limited to, risks associated with interruptions or delays in our hosting operations, breaches of our security measures, further market acceptance of the on demand software business model, market acceptance of our new product functionality, our business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and our rate of growth, our ability to expand, retain and motivate our employees and manage our growth, and our plans for new product releases. Further information on potential factors that could affect our financial results is included in our annual report on Form 10K, and in our other reports on Form 10Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of the date they are made. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason.