IBM and Portal Software Team on ASP Billing Initiative; IBM to incorporate Portal Infranet technology in worldwide ASP Prime Solution Centers

Business Wire, August 15, 2000

Business Editors

LAS VEGAS & CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 2000

IBM and Portal Software, Inc., (Nasdaq:PRSF) today announced an agreement to further accelerate growth of the emerging Application Service Provider (ASP) industry. The two firms will offer software developer assistance with IP Billing and User Management Services, two necessary components for server-based hosting in ASP data centers.

Portal's Infranet(R) platform and training will be offered to qualified software developers within IBM's ASP Prime, a flagship program for helping software developers ready their applications for Web hosting. This initiative will establish Portal, a leading provider of business infrastructure software for application service providers, as the first customer management and billing platform within IBM's ASP Prime Solution Center facilities worldwide. Through this relationship, the Centers will now be able to educate developers how to extend their hosted application with Infranet customer management and billing services.

This agreement also provides an important framework for allowing both companies to work together towards a common industry interface definition for billing instrumentation and user provisioning in a hosted application environment. The IBM ASP Prime Centers will be instrumental in allowing ISVs to obtain the support necessary for rapidly developing and testing their billing enabled applications. Portal's Infranet will be used as the standard platform for developing a common definition.

"IBM's relationship with Portal is key to building an even more robust set of offerings for qualified developers in ASP Prime and to propel the ASP market forward," said Jim Corgel, general manager, IBM Global Net Generation Business. "It is our expectation that working with Portal on this initiative will result in more rapid enablement of applications to ASP hosting and greater success rate of software developers entering the ASP market."

According to Cahners In-Stat Group, ASP industry revenues are expected to grow from $7 million this year to $7 billion by 2004, and ASP users are projected to grow from 20,000 to 30 million within the same time frame.

"The Internet's impact across all industries will be largely through ASP business models that are clearly driving radical changes in the software industry," said Steve Sommer, vice president business development and marketing, Portal Software. "A platform for Internet services, Portal's solution is ideally suited to provide the business infrastructure requirements of the ASP business, and IBM has a fastpath for preparing applications for the ASP model with ASP Prime. With the overwhelming market acceptance for our solution, we have established a leading position and we believe we will continue successful implementation of our ongoing ASP initiative with this relationship we now have with IBM."

Portal(R) Infranet software platform is a real-time, highly scalable solution for the effective management of Internet services and emerging ASPs. Infranet allows service providers to capitalize on exploding Internet business markets with out-of-the-box functionality, open architecture, built-in flexibility and seamless integration with other systems. Infranet supports the creation and management of customer accounts; development, pricing and provisioning of service offerings; and customer activity tracking, rating, and billing.

IBM's ASP Prime Solution Centers provide technical and marketing assistance for qualified developers who want to extend their IBM UNIX, Windows NT and AS/400 applications into the ASP hosting environment. Through ASP Prime and IBM's Hosting Advantage initiative, a qualified ASP hosting provider will be recommended to developers who successfully complete their application testing and enablement within any of the centers. ASP Prime Solution Centers are currently located in Beaverton, Ore., and Rochester, Minn. Waltham, Mass.; Hursley, England; Sydney, Australia; San Mateo, Calif.; Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; and Stuttgart, Germany.

About IBM

IBM is focused on delivering customized, flexible and scalable Internet solutions for companies of all sizes. Drawing on resources from across IBM and 90,000 IBM Business Partners, IBM's Global Net Generation Business helps Internet Service Providers, Web hosting companies, portals and born-on-the-Web companies establish their businesses and become profitable in Internet time. For more information on how IBM is helping Net Generation companies, visit http://www.ibm.com/solutions/netgeneration.> About Portal

Portal Software, Inc., is building business infrastructure for the Internet. Based in Cupertino, Calif., Portal is the leading provider of customer management and billing software for Internet and emerging, next-generation communications services. The company's real-time solution enables service providers to manage customers, support services and collect money. Portal's customers include US WEST, Qwest Communications, Inktomi, Covad, Deutsche Telekom's T-Online, Telenor Mobil AS, Juno Online and France Telecom.