Quintus Scalability Benchmark Provides Industry's First Metrics For Evaluating Customer Information Systems; Scalability is essential as CIS join the ranks of mission-critical, client/server applications

Business Wire, Jan 7, 1997

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 7, 1997--Quintus Corporation, a premier provider of customer relationship software, today released the results of its benchmark study of the scalability of CustomerQ, its client/server customer information system (CIS). The benchmark study, the industry's first for CIS software, provides to information technology professionals the first metrics by which to evaluate the ability of customer information systems to scale to meet enterprise-wide usage demands. Performed in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard and Informix, the study indicates that CustomerQ, Quintus's flagship solution for call centers and help desks, can efficiently support more than 2,000 simultaneous enterprise-wide users -- a number of users large by today's standards, but the norm for CIS implementations of the near future.

Call center growth and consolidation demands benchmarking results

With the cost of operating call centers growing annually, and non-labor expenses accounting for 60% of the operating cost, more and more organizations are building larger single centers instead of multiple regional centers. In addition, the trend to consolidate existing multiple center operations will result in the average number of agents in each center increasing dramatically. In many cases demanding CIS performance well beyond original intended number of agents or call volume. This, along with a 117% increase in the number of call centers from 1994 to 1995, will raise the importance of well documented benchmarking results in future CIS purchasing decisions.

Enterprise usage of CIS data surges

"Quintus's benchmark study is a breakthrough because customer information systems have now achieved the same status as more traditional mission-critical applications like manufacturing and financials," said Lawrence Byrd, chief technical officer, Quintus Corporation. "We are experiencing extremely rapid growth at Quintus, as companies look to CIS solutions like CustomerQ to raise customer satisfaction and retention levels. Departments throughout our customers' organizations are tapping the value of the front-line customer information captured by CustomerQ; as more and more users log onto the system, application scalability becomes increasingly important."

Benchmarks: The start of a more structured purchasing process

"Compared to other client/server applications, there are few metrics by which to evaluate packages in the rapidly-emerging CIS market. Scalability continues to be one of the greatest concerns of customers when evaluating CIS technology and a key point of differentiation among the vendors," added Kurt Johnson, program director, services and systems management strategies at The META Group, Waltham, MA. "Given the rapid growth in today's call centers, if the architecture can't scale, you know that the CIS software isn't going to be able to handle the inevitable demands the organization will place on it. I applaud Quintus's efforts to establish benchmarks to help insure the investment of customers' CIS software purchases."

Quintus CustomerQ customer service and help desk software

CustomerQ delivers ready-to-use applications that can be easily modified for specific requirements. It combines intuitive interfaces, advanced component technology and best-of-breed integration to deliver complete solutions for internal help desks and external customer support. CustomerQ provides native support for Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 95, full support for Microsoft's OLE standards, built-in support for full text retrieval, telephony and a variety of communication channels, including the Web, Email, pager and fax. Additionally, the software comes with the Quintus Design Tool, the most comprehensive client/server customization tool on the market.

The Quintus benchmark study

Quintus's CustomerQ benchmark study was conducted at Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto, CA research facility on an HP T 520 server with 12 CPUs, running Informix 7.20UC2 database software under HP-UX 10.10. Pure Atria Software's Performix CS tool was used as the benchmark/load test simulation tool. The Quintus user was defined to perform a series of procedures which represent typical operations performed by CustomerQ agents. Under these conditions, CustomerQ was able to handle 2,000 concurrent users with no significant performance degradation.

A complete version of the benchmark document is available from Quintus by calling (510) 624-2800. The HP/Informix environment benchmark is the first in a series of benchmark reports to be released by Quintus throughout 1997.

About Quintus

Quintus Corporation is a premier provider of customer relationship software for customer-driven enterprises, with products supporting critical line-of-business call centers and help desks. Quintus' flagship product CustomerQ, and its integrated web product WebQ, provide efficient collection and management of customer activities and relationships. Utilizing Quintus' products, businesses are able to develop customer profiles enabling the delivery of efficient and accurate solutions and additional revenue opportunities. While delivering feature rich out-of-the-box capabilities, Quintus' focus on industry leading architecture delivers the benefits of scalable applications exceeding 2,000 concurrent users. Leveraging the CustomerQ industry leading design tool, Quintus provides rapid deployment and update of highly customized software environments. Its customers include various industry leaders such as Hilton Hotels, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Sears & Roebuck, Security First National Bank (SFNB), and Swiss Bank. Privately held, Quintus is based in Fremont, California, with regional sales and service offices in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, New Jersey, and Boston. In addition, Quintus offers global solutions through distributors in Germany and United Kingdom. For information on the variety of Quintus products, call (800) 337-8941, e-mail sales@quintus.com, or access the World Wide Web site at http://www.quintus.com.