Astea International provides secure access to customer interaction operations over the Internet.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 28, 1996--See Astea in Booth #407--

Links to DISPATCH-1's work order management,

parts order management and depot repair now available

Astea International Inc. (NASDAQ:ATEA) today unveiled at the AFSMI show a new Web-enabled customer interaction software solution that gives a company's customers direct access to customer service information so they can quickly troubleshoot problems, place orders and track shipments on-line.

Astea's DISPATCH-1 solution provides comprehensive functionality over the Internet by providing links to three key areas: work order management, parts order management and depot repair.

In addition to functionality depth, Astea's Internet solution provides companies with advanced security and high-volume transaction processing capabilities. As companies turn to the Internet to conduct business, one of their biggest concerns is ensuring that data is secure from unauthorized users. Astea provides a secure customer interaction Internet solution by isolating its DISPATCH-1 database from direct access by Internet users, allowing customers to access the product suite at the application level, rather than directly through the database. This architecture provides a high level of security to ensure data integrity.

Using an advanced transaction brokering technology, Astea also addresses high volume transaction processing over the Internet by enabling companies to manage a large stream of complex transactions through DISPATCH-1. This feature ensures that companies who have high volumes of transactions do not experience performance problems. Bay Networks, for example, is providing all its resellers with access to return authorization, sales order and work order information in DISPATCH-1 over the Internet. Because the company anticipated that a large number of resellers would take advantage of the solution, it needed a system that could handle high transaction volumes.

"We wanted to maximize our throughput and minimize the number of concurrent users we have running simultaneously, so that regardless of the number of inquires, answers would be delivered as quickly as possible," said John Brotherston, Web systems development manager at Bay Networks. "Using Web-enabled DISPATCH-1 we expect to see significant savings and increased response times over our previous manual method where resellers had to call customer service whenever they needed information."

Depth of functionality

While competitive customer interaction systems provide limited capabilities over the Internet, Web-enabled DISPATCH-1 provides functionality for the customer service cycle, from work order management, to parts order management, to depot repair. This functionality makes customer service fully automated over the Web, faster and increases the service provider's productivity.

DISPATCH-1's work order management enables customers to log information and troubleshoot calls on their own by using a variety of advanced intelligent technologies, eliminating the need to rely on the service organization's engineers to solve all their problems. The software's parts order management function lets customers place their orders directly through a "virtual on-line store," allowing the partitioning of applications so that each customer has their own "virtual" database, such as prices and discounts.

In addition, DISPATCH-1's depot repair system allows customers who need to return merchandise for repair or replacement to submit a request, receive a return to manufacturer authorization (RMA) number for tracking purposes, and ship it to the service provider. After the service provider ships the replacement part, customers can track it via hot links to shipping companies' real-time data tracking systems. For example, if a part was shipped via Federal Express, the customer would click a Federal Express icon in the Web-enabled DISPATCH-1 to find the complete status of the shipment.

"Web-enabled DISPATCH-1 is based on Astea's proven, deployed products, providing us with a strong foundation to offer customers more functionality in our Web-enabled solution than most companies do in their core applications without Internet capabilities," said Kevin Roche, vice president of program management at Astea. "Not only do we offer functionality depth, we provide customers with an easy-to-install, turnkey solution that doesn't require customers to be Internet experts."

Availability and pricing

Links to DISPATCH-1's work order management, parts order management and depot repair system functions are available in 60 days. Pricing begins at $15,000.

About Astea International

Astea International develops client/server-based customer interaction software that enables organizations to automate their customer support, field service and sales operations. With more than 550 employees worldwide, Astea markets its products through a direct sales and services network throughout North America, Europe, Israel, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The company's customer base of approximately 2,300 companies and 40,000 end users includes such industry leaders as Siemens Rolm, the Swedish PTT, Chevron and EDS. Astea can be reached at [phone]; via e-mail at [e-mail]; or via the World Wide Web at www.astea.com.

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This press release contains forward-looking statements which are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could materially affect future results. Among these risk factors are continuing acceptance of Astea's products, general competitive pressures in the marketplace, and the continued overall growth in the customer interaction software industry. Further information regarding these as well as other key risk factors and meaningful cautionary statements which could affect the Company's financial results are included at length in the Company's Forms 10-Q for the fiscal quarters ended March 31, 1996 and June 30, 1996, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1995, each filed with the SEC, and the Company's registration statements filed with the SEC and deemed effective on July 27, 1995 and September 23, 1996.

CONTACT: Clare Moulton

Astea International Inc.

[phone]

or

Christine LeCompte

Beaupre & Co. Public Releations

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[e-mail]