IEX Garners Workforce Management Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan; Product Functionality, Strong Support and Single-Server Architecture Among Key Drivers

Business Wire, Nov 12, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

RICHARDSON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 12, 2002

IEX, a Tekelec company (Nasdaq: TKLC) and a leading provider of contact center productivity solutions, today announced that Frost & Sullivan has named IEX the winner of the Market Engineering Award for leadership in the workforce management market.

Consistent increases in market share and revenues year over year for the company's TotalView(R) Workforce Management solution led to the achievement, as stated in Frost & Sullivan's recent report on Agent Performance Optimization Software.

According to the report, IEX moved into the leadership position in the North American Workforce Management software market in 2001 and maintained the top position in 2002. A combination of strengths including advanced product functionality, strong support services, solid maintenance benefits and consistent business profitability were cited as key contributors in providing IEX a decisive edge in the market.

"IEX is one of the few companies in the contact center space that has been profitable over the past two years, a true achievement in the current economic climate," said Katrina Howell, Frost & Sullivan analyst. "The company has achieved this position through a focus on its core TotalView Workforce Management product, known for scalability, reliability and the ability to meet the needs of multisite environments. Further product advantages include the reliability of the company's TotalView solution and the product's single-server architecture, which serves to reduce deployment costs and simplify on-going maintenance."

The Frost & Sullivan report goes on to describe many of the advanced features offered by the TotalView Workforce Management solution such as support for both preference-based and agent bidding schedule assignment methods, real-time and historical adherence, multimedia and skills scheduling features and a browser-based desktop component. The IEX ascent into the market leadership position has been propelled by the company's ability to retain the customers it already has, to successfully sell into new opportunities and to consistently win business from its competitors.

"We are very honored to receive the workforce management leadership award from Frost & Sullivan," said Debbie May, IEX general manager. "IEX is a strong company that has kept the focus on customer satisfaction and full-featured workforce management offerings year after year. We are committed to not simply maintaining our industry leadership position, but expanding it."

TotalView Workforce Management is a comprehensive productivity management solution enabling contact centers to deliver consistent service, lower operating costs and boost employee morale. The product automates the process of scheduling service agents in a single or multisite center, accurately matching available resources to forecasted workloads. Additional features include skills-based and multimedia scheduling, real-time and historical adherence, short-term and long-term resource planning, intraday management, vacation and holiday planning, enterprise reporting and Web-based accessibility for agent schedules and performance statistics.

About IEX

IEX, a Tekelec company, is a leading provider of innovative solutions to contact centers. In existence since 1988, the company is known for delivering technologically superior products that are easy to implement and use. Multimedia contact centers, both single and multisite, with more than 520,000 agents at over 1,900 sites worldwide rely on IEX solutions to help them manage their operations more effectively, leading to improved service quality and lower operating costs. IEX sells products and services worldwide through direct sales and select distributors. More information can be found on the IEX Web site at http://www.iex.com.