Alcatel OmniTouch Contact Center Receives Product of the Year from Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine.

Business Editors & High Tech Writers

CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2001

Award Underscores the Strength of Alcatel's Voice/Data

Convergence Offering

Alcatel (NYSE:ALA), today announced that its OmniTouch contact center suite received the Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine 2000 product of the year award.

The nominees for the award comprised of top customer relationship and workforce management technology picks from the Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine's editorial team.

The prestigious Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine awards honor the companies and products that shaped the customer relationship management (CRM) and services industry in 2000. The OmniTouch contact center was recognized by Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine for its open architecture as well as its consistent management framework that allows global supervision and control of its contact center offering.

Designed for the Alcatel OmniPCX 4400 IP-based PBX, the award winning OmniTouch offers users a suite of software application modules to build world-class, multi-media contact centers. The OmniTouch is Alcatel's premier solution for medium and large enterprises that want to deploy an integrated contact center/IP-based PBX solution for implementation in a short time period with a low total cost of ownership.

Recent integration of leading contact center functionality from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel, allows customers to benefit from the latest contact center solution to help them manage all of their calls more easily and more efficiently.

Leveraging Genesys' Internet contact center technology, the new features include CCweb (for integrating Web technology into a contact center), CCemail (for integrating e-mail into a contact center) and Ccoutbound (for automatic generation of outgoing calls).

"Alcatel is honored to accept such a distinguished award for our ability to optimize customer interactions. The OmniTouch contact center suite of application modules is tailored to meet the requirements of users wanting to deploy cost-effective, revenue generating CRM solutions," said Tom Wilburn, senior vice president of Alcatel North America Enterprise Business.

"With industry recognition such as this Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine Product of the Year award, Alcatel will continue to be the premier source for medium and large enterprise users who are looking for an out-of-the-box contact center solution to complement the Alcatel OmniPCX 4400," said Wilburn.

For more information about Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine, visit http://www.tmcnet.com/cis/

Alcatel OmniTouch Contact Center

Designed for the Alcatel OmniPCX 4400, the OmniTouch contact center offers a diverse portfolio of comprehensive and packaged solutions with multi-media (voice, e-mail, fax, Web and chat) contact and outstanding management capabilities. The all-in-one management application allows configuration and monitoring of all functions from a single view within a multi-media contact center. The modules are easy to implement and integrate seamlessly with third-party applications to provide competitive and efficient e-business.

Alcatel OmniPCX 4400

The Alcatel OmniPCX 4400 is the world's most advanced IP-based voice communications system. Based on a client/server UNIX architecture, the Alcatel OmniPCX 4400 includes scalability from 50 to 50,000 users, innovative Reflexes telephone handsets, 99.999 percent reliability, one-number mobility, unified messaging, voice-over IP networking with quality of service management and comprehensive network management.

About Alcatel

Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data networking solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 130,000 employees and sales of $29 billion (EURO $31 billion) in 2000, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com.

About Genesys

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., an independent wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel (NYSE:ALA)(Paris:CGEP.PA), is the leading provider of universal queue contact center solutions for complete customer relationship management. Genesys offers an integrated suite of open, infrastructure-independent applications that manage interactions across all media types, networks and applications. Headquartered in San Francisco, Genesys has served Global 2000 enterprises and major telecommunications carriers and service providers for more than for 10 years. Today, Genesys has offices around the world and maintains a global network of partners, including BroadVision, IBM Global Services, Alcatel, SAP, Siebel Systems and Siemens. Visit www.genesyslab.com or call 1-888-GENESYS (in the U.S.) for more information.