diCarta Announces diCarta Contracts Version 6 for Universal Contract Management

diCarta, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise contract management solutions, today announced diCarta Contracts Version 6. With this release, diCarta extends its leadership in the enterprise contract management space with several industry firsts, including: support for managing contracts negotiated on the "outside paper" of suppliers and customers; a self-service wizard for guided contract configuration; fax-based contract negotiation; and contract analytics using multidimensional "data cubes."

diCarta Contracts Version 6 provides Fortune 1000 companies with Universal Contract Management. This broad solution encompasses all contracts, whether created internally or externally, all contract presentation and negotiation methods, all professionals in extended contract user communities, and all stages of the contract management process.

"We are seeing an increasing number of Fortune 100 companies that view enterprise contract management as one of their most important initiatives this year," said Mike Kaul, President and Chief Executive Officer of diCarta. "Companies are selecting diCarta Contracts as a strategic platform for cutting costs through better supplier management and improved salesforce effectiveness. Our customers are seeing these benefits directly impact their bottom line."

Universal Contract Management

With Universal Contract Management, diCarta Contracts Version 6 delivers greater value to a wider group of users with:

--  "External Form" Language:  Some software solutions provide
    capabilities to manage creation, negotiation, and compliance for contracts
    created internally, but until now, no vendor has provided a solution to
    effectively manage the other half of the world's contracts -- those created
    with the "outside paper" of suppliers and customers. In this latest
    release, diCarta Contracts Version 6 becomes the first solution to provide
    capabilities that are critical in managing these contracts, including
    functionality to manage contract clauses, automatically extract key
    business terms, ensure proper review and approval, enforce supplier
    compliance, and report across all of these contracts.

--  All Presentation & Negotiation Methods:  In previous releases, diCarta
    Contracts set the standard in contract creation and negotiation via a Web
    portal or Microsoft® Word. The solution now adds diCarta Contracts
    functionality directly within Microsoft Word by embedding contract
    management controls and clause-level intelligence within Microsoft Word
    toolbars and menus. Professionals can now perform tasks such as
    substituting contract clauses, adding comments, accepting and rejecting
    changes, and viewing clause revisions, all from within Microsoft Word.
    diCarta Contracts Version 6 provides this rich desktop integration for
    Microsoft Word 2000, 2002/XP, and 2003, which together comprise the vast
    majority of contract professionals' desktops.

    The latest release of the diCarta solution also adds Intelligent
    Roundtrip for Fax to manage fax-based negotiation. diCarta Contracts
    Version 6 receives incoming faxes, automatically associates these
    documents with the right contract and negotiation process, performs
    business checks, advances negotiation, and immediately notifies the
    responsible parties. This capability eliminates errors, reduces
    overhead, and accelerates the negotiation process.

    diCarta Contracts Version 6 is the first contract management solution
    to manage contract negotiation via the Web, Microsoft Word, and fax.

--  Extended User Communities: diCarta Contracts Version 6 extends
    contract management capabilities beyond power users to include the extended
    community with a new contract creation wizard and configurator. The wizard
    enables self-service contract assembly and guided selling by prompting
    users through a series of questions. In addition, diCarta Contracts Version
    6 enables contract professionals, rather than IT staff, to create the
    "interviews" used by the contract wizard to create and configure contracts.

    The latest release of diCarta Contracts also offers online education.
    The solution provides self-paced training as well as online testing to
    assess proficiency. Companies can now cost-effectively train large
    numbers of users across geographic locations.

--  The Entire Contract Management Process:  diCarta Contracts Version 6
    adds sales proposal management, extending the breadth of the solution to
    cover all contract and business agreement processes, including proposal
    creation, contract request, contract creation, negotiation, amendment,
    renewal, and termination.

"Line-of-business managers in every business discipline see engagement with the full contract life cycle as an integral part of what they do, and management of contracts as a critical component of business success," said Andy Kyte, Vice President, Gartner Group. "Contracts are enterprise assets and they need to be treated as such. This demands tools that ensure that the full contract life cycle is effectively managed."