ITernative Introduces Hosted Telephony Services for Enterprises and Contact Centers Based on Interaction Management Software by Interactive Intelligence

Business Wire, June 18, 2001

Business Editors & High Tech Writers

INDIANAPOLIS & BURLINGAME, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 18, 2001

Interactive Intelligence Inc. (Nasdaq:ININ)

ITernative to provide shared, dedicated and carrier

class telephony and web-based hosted communications services

ITernative Inc., an information technology solutions provider, has added hosted services using interaction management software by Interactive Intelligence Inc. (Nasdaq:ININ).

The new services, made generally available last month, give enterprises and contact centers an alternative to building and maintaining an on-premise communications infrastructure, while providing carriers with additional revenue-generating services.

ITernative's hosted services were designed to help organizations reduce complexity and overhead costs associated with the development and maintenance of on-site communication infrastructures and applications.

ITernative is focused on the growing small office/home office and small to mid-sized business market segments that are deploying sales and support e-services. According to many leading industry analysts, the SOHO/SMB market is projected to nearly double to approximately 50 million employees by 2003. It's also estimated that by 2003, 40 to 50 percent of U.S. employees online will be SOHO/SMB users and will utilize some sort of online computing service from an applications service provider.

ITernative completed beta testing of its three levels of hosted services in April 2001. ITernative's Shared Hosting Services, Dedicated Hosting Services and Carrier Class Hosting Services are each designed to meet a range of business needs, from partial to complete hosting, and even a level of service using the emerging Class 5 soft switch SIP interface for local exchange carriers, Internet service providers and other carriers.

ITernative's hosted services include unified messaging, PC-based soft phone, presence management, Internet text chat, interactive voice response, teleconferencing, virtual queues and customer relationship management integration. ITernative's hosted services also include systems maintenance, 24x7 customer support, business process consulting and multiple voice transport layer options.

"We selected software by Interactive Intelligence to be the core `engine' for our hosted services because its unique architecture provides the most cost-effective yet comprehensive multi-channel communications solution on the market today," said Raetus Egli, president and chief executive officer of ITernative.

The Interactive Intelligence software is based on an open architecture that provides a central point of control for all interaction processing. Interactive Intelligence designed the software as a flexible, cost-effective alternative to proprietary, legacy telecommunication devices.

ITernative already has a growing customer base using its hosted services, including Mentor Executive Search and NetLedger, both based in California.

Said Ken Hibbits, president of Mentor Executive Search: "When ITernative first demonstrated its hosted telephony services, I was amazed by the intuitive and user-friendly Interaction Client(TM) application developed by Interactive Intelligence. I was able to use it almost immediately with excellent results. Since then, it's proven to be a tremendous asset to our company by giving employees an easy way to quickly manage client information and interactions via phone, fax and e-mail. In the competitive business of recruitment, we've found ITernative's hosted services to be absolutely invaluable."

"As a pioneer in the field of web-based integrated small business solutions, and recently voted `Best Applications Service Provider' by PC Magazine, we expect our technology to meet the highest standards," said Maurice Smallwood, director of information technology for NetLedger. "We chose ITernative's hosted telephony services because of its low start-up cost, ease-of-deployment and a broad selection of contact center applications including `virtual' agent features that enable our agents to work from multiple locations with nothing more than an Internet connection and phone number. This service is helping us to improve our customer service, increase productivity, and even increase job satisfaction among our agents, without spending a fortune."

"ITernative clearly understands the value proposition of interaction management applications," said Dr. Donald E. Brown, president and chief executive officer of Interactive Intelligence. "We've seen too many companies fail because they thought customers would buy a service based on transport or bandwidth capabilities alone. ITernative has wisely positioned applications at the center of its value proposition. We think this is a smart approach and we're delighted that ITernative has deployed our software to support its new services."

ITernative first became an Interactive Intelligence solutions provider partner in 1999. Today, ITernative has more than 3,500 customers using the Interactive Intelligence software on a hosted and non-hosted basis.