PricewaterhouseCoopers and Portal Software Form Strategic Alliance

Business Wire, March 16, 1999

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 1999--PricewaterhouseCoopers today announced that it has formed a strategic alliance with Portal Software, a leading provider of real-time customer management and billing solutions.

The relationship is a strong addition to PricewaterhouseCoopers' solution set for communications carriers, cable companies and Internet providers. Via its Communications Enterprise Solutions Architecture (CESA), the firm has been helping Internet providers and communications carriers cut their time to market significantly. The alliance with Portal enables PricewaterhouseCoopers to distribute and implement Portal's real-time customer management software to communications companies supplying Internet business services, further strengthening the firm's ability to continue to cut the time to implement full solutions for carriers who cannot spend years getting the systems infrastructure in place.

"The deployment of new networks and Internet-based services is not only changing the communications landscape, but drastically reducing the time that carriers and providers have to respond. Business infrastructure now needs to be implemented in months, not years," said Jennifer Taylor, leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers Communications Consulting Practice in the Americas. "This alliance focuses on providing key components of the robust customer management infrastructure that Internet providers must have to deliver on the promise of the new networks."

"The Internet and next-generation communication services market is extremely competitive and requires providers to deploy a flexible infrastructure that supports real-time pricing and provisioning of new services," said Steve Sommer, Portal's Vice President of Business Development. "Our alliance with PricewaterhouseCoopers will provide communications carriers with a customer management and billing infrastructure that enables them to quickly enter new IP-based markets by offering competitive services faster than ever before."

PricewaterhouseCoopers was given the highest overall ranking for systems integration among professional service organizations in a 1998 customer satisfaction study conducted by Information Week Research. The study interviewed IT managers with purchasing authority or management responsibility for their company's relationship with leading U.S. systems integrators.

The Management Consulting Services practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers helps clients maximize their business performance by integrating strategic change, process improvements and technology solutions. Through a worldwide network of skills and resources, consultants manage complex projects with global capabilities and local knowledge, from strategy through implementation. PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwcglobal.com), the world's largest professional services organization, helps its clients build value, manage risk and improve their performance. Drawing on the talents of 146,000 professionals in 148 countries, PricewaterhouseCoopers provides a full range of business advisory services to leading global, national and local companies and to public institutions.

Portal Software develops, markets and supports real-time, scaleable customer management and billing software, or CM&B software, for providers of Internet-based services. Portal's Infranet software is a comprehensive solution that meets the complex, mission-critical provisioning, accounting, reporting and marketing needs of providers of Internet-based services.