NHancement Technologies Works With Cisco Systems to Launch Personalized Communications Hub Using Cisco Unified Communications Platform

Business Wire, May 23, 2000

Business Editors, High-Tech/Communications Writers

PLEASANTON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2000

New "on-tap" Personalized Communications Hub creates anywhere,

anytime, any format connectivity that allows individuals to manage

personal, public and enterprise communication and information

NHancement Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq:NHAN) announced today the introduction of a new product that provides "on-tap" delivery of a Personalized Communications Hub (PCH), unifying communication and information technologies to connect users to the people, information and services they desire, both at home and in the workplace.

Utilizing Cisco Systems' unified communications platform, NHancement's new product will allow people to access the information they need, when they need it, where they need it and in their preferred communication format. Responding to what analysts acknowledge is a global market for unified communication and information, NHancement's PCH-On-Tap combines three key elements:

-- End users can access personalized Web portals, audio Web

portals, speech recognition technology, collaboration

connectivity and Web-phone features.

-- For enterprise users, there is intelligent connectivity. This

means legacy data repositories, communications channels,

customer contact systems and other business functions remain

intact. Additional application layers include telephony

engines, data retrieval and delivery engines, data analysis

engines and sales/services recommendation engines.

-- A global Virtual Private Network will deliver these

applications to those customers who require high reliability,

toll quality voice delivery and security.

Cisco's Unified Communications Platform

A key component of the PCH-On-Tap product will be the Unified Open Network Exchange (uOne) software from Cisco Systems, Inc.. Cisco's unified communications platform offers carrier-quality, IP-based unified communications seamlessly across previously fragmented channels including e-mail, fax, and voice mail. NHancement will add eight additional application modules to uOne to create a new level of end user connectivity to information and communication.

According to recent reports, the unified communications market is being shaped by what service providers say is the need for value-added offerings to help offset the "commoditization" of their basic network services.

"By offering unique value-added applications and services, service providers today can better serve their customers and resist the downward pricing pressure by boosting the value of their overall service package," said Eugene Lee, vice president of marketing for Cisco's Internet Communications Software Group. "These `enhanced' service packages, such as the ones created by NHancement using Cisco's uOne software, increase the customer touch points for a given provider, thereby increasing customer loyalty and reducing churn. We believe this will provide significant enhanced value to NHancement's communications offerings."

Doug Zorn, NHancement's President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors, added, "What this means is users of our product can gather personal information, enterprise information and public information and review it in the manner they want, be that voice, graphics or text. They can talk to their personalized Web page, grab the information they need and collate it in a way they can use. We believe that's pretty powerful stuff."

Zorn continued, "We have assembled a team of successful professionals whose knowledge base will allow NHancement to provide the global infrastructure to support 5 million subscribers by the third quarter of 2000. Because our research highlights the pent-up demand for scalable, flexible and seamless integration across all communication and information channels, we have formed a relationship with Cisco to dramatically move into the unified communications and information market. This effectively positions NHancement to target service providers and move to a reoccurring service-based revenue model."

For SPs, it's all about perceived value

NHancement's Chief Marketing Officer, Richard Glover, stated "We feel we are bringing a unique offering to the market space. Our PCH-On-Tap will allow service providers to resell to their customers a suite of applications that significantly increase their ability to manage their information and communication anytime, any place, and in any format. You might say that the PCH-On-Tap product offering positions NHancement Technologies as the definitive `SP2SP' (service provider to the service providers)!"

$12 Billion Market Worldwide by 2006

The NHancement PCH-On-Tap product offering has already attracted key customer interest and initial deployment is expected to commence within weeks. More than one billion personal messages are transmitted daily through mailboxes, answering machines and personal computers in the United States. Additionally, the world has seen an explosive growth in the use of mobile communications devices such as pagers, cellular phones and Web-enabled Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Industry analyst firm, the Ovum Group, projects the Unified Messaging worldwide market will grow from $1.5 billion in 2000 to $12 billion by 2006.