Amdahl Launches New Internet Venture — trustedanswer.com Provides Hosted Web-Based Customer Support with a Self-Service Knowledge Base to e-Businesses - Company Operations

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, April 17, 2000

Amdahl Corp. Tuesday launched a new Internet venture, trustedanswer.com, aimed at companies doing business over the Internet. The mission of trustedanswer.com is to become the premier provider of hosted customer service and support, with a Web-based self-service solution as the centerpiece of its offerings.

Amdahl has strong expertise with integrating and managing all aspects of customer service and support, and in particular with building and deploying knowledge base technology as the basis for all solutions. trustedanswer.com is currently fully funded by Amdahl Corp., with intentions to spin off into its own entity.

"Amdahl's reputation has been built on the mission-critical customer support we provide our customers to help them compete and thrive, and trustedanswer.com extends that reputation into the world of hosted services," said Ali Jenab, CEO of trustedanswer.com and group president of the Amdahl Technology Division. "By providing a superior customer support solution on a hosted basis, thereby speeding e-business solutions' time to market for both traditional and dot-com companies, we intend to grow trustedanswer.com into a $100 million business by 2004."

trustedanswer.com meets an important need of today's Web-savvy customers and end users that are not always satisfied with traditional phone-based customer service. They need help 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the Internet provides e-businesses with that capability. trustedanswer.com offers a full range of support options, including graphically rich Web-based self-service, eQuery, advanced chat and phone support. trustedanswer.com also advises their clients to help them determine which options are most appropriate for their individual needs.

trustedanswer.com has special expertise in building and deploying graphically rich knowledge base technology as the basis for its solutions. Potential customers can log onto the trustedanswer.com Web site (located at www.trustedanswer.com) to get an "e-Checkup" and determine whether an eSupport solution such as trustedanswer would benefit their business.

Target Markets trustedanswer.com is initially targeting three types of companies with its customer service and support solution:

-- Traditional brick-and-mortar companies launching or expanding e-commerce initiatives

-- Emerging dot-com companies or e-commerce companies that deliver services or products via the Web

-- Companies such as software or network equipment companies offering technically complex products or services that need a superior technical support solution in order to provide effective Web-based self-service

trustedanswer.com delivers an operational support solution and helps companies transition to knowledge base technology to significantly improve customer support effectiveness. In addition, the reduced operating costs that come from trustedanswer.com's economies of scale and focus on Web-based support make an immediate impact on the bottom line.

trustedanswer.com -- the Wave of the Future Amdahl believes that hosted Web-based solutions will become the preferred way to deliver software applications over time. To meet this future demand and go one step further, trustedanswer.com combines advanced customer support technology with expertise to provide complete business process outsourcing for customer support. By utilizing a hosted service, rather than building its own infrastructure in-house, a company can realize numerous benefits:

-- Conserving resources -- Using trustedanswer.com to host customer service functions allows companies to focus valuable resources on revenue producing activities. Companies will be able to cut support costs by more than 50 percent.

-- Increasing speed -- trustedanswer.com speeds companies into the world of Web-enabled knowledge-based customer support with a standard eight-week deployment cycle.

-- Utilizing pay-as-you-go economics -- trustedanswer.com eliminates the expense and risk of a significant system implementation project as well as associated hardware and software costs.

All options are completely transparent to end users, who are unaware that they are interacting with trustedanswer.com rather than the customer or e-business site. The company offers superior understanding of the support process through its unique ServiceTrax system, which supplies a direct link to customers, providing instant feedback. This system allows trustedanswer.com's customers to better understand what drives their users.

These benefits allow trustedanswer.com to deliver superior customer service and support to companies in a fraction of the time and cost it would take them to develop, implement, deploy and manage a solution on their own.

Amdahl is already regarded as a leader in delivering superior customer service to its own clients. However, with the launch of trustedanswer.com, Amdahl can handle the complex and costly problem of helping its customers deliver excellent support to their end users, allowing these companies to focus limited resources and energy on other aspects of their businesses.