Innovative Customers Win Plumtree's ''No Empty Portals!'' Killer Applications Awards

Business Wire, Feb 2, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- Winners Build and Deploy Plumtree-Powered Integrated Activity Management Applications, Giving High-Value, High-ROI to Customers

Plumtree Software (Nasdaq:PLUM) today announced the 2004 winners of its annual No Empty Portals! Awards. Given to Plumtree customers that deploy the most innovative use of composite applications, these companies have developed Integrated Activity Management (IAM) applications that bring together human-managed activities driven by business processes across multiple systems. IAM applications coordinate the collaborative activities and processes that fall between the gaps of traditional packaged applications.

MassHousing won first place for eMassHousing and MassHousing.com, its integrated lender and borrower extranet IAM applications; a Fortune 100 forest products company won second place for its Inventory Management application, which allows managers at over 40 mills to share their surplus inventory; and Staples won third place for its Staples@work Store Manager application, which delivers key information to managers directly from the store floor. The evaluation team for the award was composed of industry analysts, members of Plumtree's Customer Advisory Board and Plumtree executives.

Staples: Empowering Store Managers and Improving Customer Service on the Store Floor

Staples, the world's largest office products retailer, deployed the Staples@work Store Manager Application for 31,000 managers and associates across 1,600 stores. The application delivers the most relevant information to store managers quickly, allowing them to make better decisions regarding store operations and spend more time on the store floor serving customers. Managers and service associates access Staples@work daily via point-of-sale registers within stores, logging in for:

--Store performance and associate management: Managers assign tasks and monitor associate workload using color-coded status portlets. Improved monitoring and the ability to track and report store progress has enabled Staples to achieve a significant ROI in its first year alone.

--Planograms and store layouts: With the ability to target, update and deliver layouts via Staples@work, Staples UK stores alone have saved thousands of dollars per year in labor, supply, printing and postage costs.

--Customized reporting and store information: Managers access customer survey results, HR, financial, and operational reports, print rebate coupons and search across store inventories by SKU number.

The Plumtree-powered Staples@work integrated activity management application receives approximately two million hits per day, and Staples has been able to estimate millions of dollars in annual productivity savings from its deployment on store floors.

MassHousing: Revolutionizing Business with Faster, Easier, Less Expensive Home Loan Processes

MassHousing, the leading provider of affordable housing in Massachusetts, used uses the Plumtree Enterprise Web Suite to link lenders and business partners with the activities and systems required to lower the cost of applying for and approving loans. Via eMasshousing.com, lenders complete the entire mortgage process, from the initial application to the close of the mortgage, from one personalized IAM application. Learn more about eMassHousing.com

MassHousing extended eMassHousing.com to MassHousing.com, an intentions-based public extranet application that pre-qualifies applicants for loans, provides program and service information to consumers and business partners, and delivers comprehensive, step-by-step home buying tools. The common service-oriented architecture allows MassHousing to seamlessly integrate data between its partner and applicant extranets, while the cohesive platform for supporting multiple service delivery channels has made it faster, easier and cheaper for MassHousing to address and deliver upon its core business function: attracting new borrowers and helping them receive loans.

In a time of heightened competition due to mortgage rates hitting all time lows, MassHousing's lender and borrower applications actually resulted in the organization retaining and even growing its loan pipeline. The agility demonstrated by IT helped MassHousing's line of businesses quickly adapt to the changing economic environment, by providing:

--A faster business medium: MassHousing's extranet applications have decreased loan approval time from an average of one day to 10 minutes.

--A less expensive transaction medium: Lenders now have one place to access all the information they need, lowering transaction costs by 60% per loan.

--Increased adoption from easier processes: A simpler loan approval process resulted in a 94% adoption rate within 3 months of deployment

--Reduced administrative time and burden: MassHousing has cut its workload processing times by 50%, from six months to two to four, with almost half of the Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) as previously needed.

Sharing Surplus Inventory Opens Views into Valuable Store Rooms