Aspect Telecommunications and Centrobe Form Alliance to Provide Fortune 1000 Companies With Customer Contact Solutions.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 12, 1999--

Companies Integrate Best-of-Breed Call Center Applications

Software With Comprehensive Consulting Services

Aspect Telecommunications Inc. (Nasdaq:ASPT), the leading company with an exclusive focus on call centers, and Centrobe, an EDS company, announced that they have formed an alliance combining Aspect's expertise in developing scaleable, mission-critical call center solutions with Centrobe's consulting and integration services focused on Enterprise Customer Management (ECMsm).

Through this alliance, Aspect and Centrobe will provide Fortune 1000 companies with end-to-end, technology-enabled business solutions that streamline communications with their customers across the enterprise, leading to higher levels of service. In this way, companies can maximize their customer contacts by seamlessly integrating e-mail, voice mail, fax and the Internet with traditional voice calls.

Centrobe will expand its service offering by training and certifying ECM personnel on Aspect's comprehensive call center applications software. Centrobe and Aspect will team to provide strategic consulting, systems integration and project management services for Centrobe/Aspect solutions, helping global organizations improve their customer service and increase revenue opportunities.

Aspect's integrated Call Center Applications software simplifies the development of today's multisystem, multisite, multivendor call center environments.

Customer contact opportunities such as e-mail, voice mail, fax, the Internet and traditional voice calls, when fully integrated, are at the heart of Enterprise Customer Management (ECM), which is the management of all interactions between a company and its customers so that relationships are established that result in increased loyalty and value. Centrobe is the global leader in providing ECM solutions.

According to Carter Lusher, vice president and research fellow for Gartner Group, "Organizations operating traditional customer call centers are facing two distinct challenges: clients demanding increasingly greater convenience, and the need to contain costs while generating revenue."

Lusher predicts that "By 2001, organizations that do not put a scalable, flexible, multipurpose customer contact center into place will be unable to respond to competitive pressure and will lose market share."

"Our partnership with Centrobe provides Fortune 1000 companies with a single resource for creating and implementing customized contact centers that provide superior customer service and return on investment," states Erhan Cakmak, general manager of Business Development for Aspect.

"Our commitment to investment protection means that customers can be confident that today's technology acquisitions will integrate with future applications as well."

"Consumers today are leveraging an array of technologies to communicate with product and service providers," says Dale Youngkrantz, vice president of Professional Services for Centrobe.

"More than ever, they are demanding the flexibility to contact product and service providers anywhere in their enterprise, at any time of day, and in any way they choose. Aspect and Centrobe have the technology and expertise to make this possible for companies committed to building ongoing relationships with their customers."

Centrobe

Centrobe, an EDS company, is the global leader in Enterprise Customer Management solutions. Employing more than 10,000 people and operating in 19 countries, Centrobe provides marketing planning, loyalty marketing, database marketing, analytics, teleservices, Internet services, fulfillment, order management, and distribution. Centrobe is headquartered near Boulder, Colo., and can be visited via the Internet at http://www.centrobe.com.

EDS

EDS has been a leader in the global information services industry for over 35 years. The company delivers systems and technology expertise, management consulting, business process management and electronic commerce leadership. EDS, which reported revenues of $15.2 billion in 1997, offers solutions to improve the performance of more than 9,000 business and government clients in about 50 countries.

The company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:EDS) and the London Stock Exchange. Visit EDS via the Internet at http://www.eds.com

Aspect Telecommunications

Aspect Telecommunications (Nasdaq:ASPT) provides comprehensive business solutions for mission-critical call centers worldwide. Aspect integrated call center products and services help businesses such as airlines, retail sales, financial services and communications enhance productivity, increase revenues and provide superior customer service.

Aspect products include automatic call distributors, computer-telephony integration solutions, call center management and reporting software, automation solutions and planning and forecasting packages. The company also provides business applications consulting and systems integration services and around-the-clock support.

Aspect is based in San Jose, Calif., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and South America. For more information about Aspect Telecommunications, visit the company's Web site at http://www.aspect.com or call 1-800-226-8441.

Note to Editors: Aspect and the Aspect logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Telecommunications Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. All other product or service names mentioned in this document may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.