Athene Software and NARUS Sign Alliance Agreement to Provide iCRM Solutions to Communications Service Providers (CSPs).

Business Editors

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 1, 2000

Solution combines APT Churn(TM) and APT Profitability(TM) with NARUS Internet Business Infrastructure(IBI) Platform to Provide Intelligent

Customer Relationship Management (iCRM(TM)) Solutions for

Communications Service Providers

Athene Software, provider of customer-focused Intelligent Customer Relationship Management (iCRM(TM)) software and NARUS, Inc., a leading provider of Internet Business Infrastructure (IBI) solutions, today announced a technology and marketing alliance. Under the terms of the agreement, Athene and NARUS will integrate their software products to provide Communications Service Providers (CSPs) with intelligent Customer Relationship Management (iCRM(TM)) solutions. Together these products will provide CSPs with the ability to engage in intelligent discussions with their customers, to proactively increase customer retention and maximize customer profitability.

"We are pleased to be partnered with NARUS. The extensive information supplied by the NARUS IBI Platform will maximize the accuracy and efficiency of our retention and profitability solutions and will allow us to address some of the biggest challenges facing CSPs today," said Eric Johnson, president and CEO of Athene Software. "Our advanced machine-learning models and statistical techniques provide customer-specific predictions and customer-centric solutions to churn and profitability management across all customer touchpoints."

"The link-up between NARUS and Athene is a natural and inevitable response to the changing business environment for CSPs," said Mark Stone, president and COO of NARUS. "Customer retention and cross-sell/up-sell solutions depend on complete, accurate, real-time knowledge about customers and their usage patterns - which is exactly what the NARUS IBI Platform provides. We are pleased to be working with Athene to deliver this critical weapon to CSPs who are fighting to achieve profitable growth."

About APT Churn and APT Profitability

First released in July 1999, APT Churn uses state-of-the-art machine learning models and advanced statistical techniques to provide customer-specific predictions and customer-centric solutions to maximize customer retention and profitability. APT Churn marks the industry's first native web system that not only predicts the customers most likely to churn, but also suggests the best retention methods and campaigns designed to keep them as loyal customers. APT Profitability proactively identifies up-sell, and cross-sell opportunities for new and existing products and services.

About the NARUS IBI Platform

The NARUS IBI platform gathers detailed customer and service usage information directly from high-speed, carrier-grade IP networks, as well as from other sources, and makes that information available to applications from NARUS and third parties. IBI applications from NARUS include NARUS Intelligence, a web-based decision support solution that provides comprehensive reports on customers and service usage, and the NARUS Billing Mediation System (BMS), which enables key customer care and billing applications with accurate usage information, in real time and supports value-based business models for digital content distribution, web commerce, application hosting, messaging services, and many others. A growing number of NARUS Solutions Partners are integrating their applications with the NARUS IBI Platform, adding comprehensive, real-time usage data to their billing, customer care, fraud detection, churn management and other key operational and business support system (OSS/BSS) applications.

About Athene

Athene Software provides a suite of customer-focused Intelligent Customer Relationship Management (iCRM(TM)) solutions, which dynamically forecasts customer behavior, reveals the drivers or reasons for this behavior, delivers real-time recommendations to all customer touch points and continuously learns with each customer interaction. Athene's predictive intelligence provides a 360-degree view of customers throughout their life cycle. Combining some of the world's best domain experts and machine learning scientists, Athene enables ISPs, customer-based e-businesses and Communications Service Providers around the world to proactively build and retain profitable, long-term, and loyal customer bases. Athene Software is headquartered in Boulder, Colo. For more information, visit www.athenesoft.com.

About NARUS

NARUS, the pioneer and leading provider of Internet business infrastructure (IBI) solutions, gives IP service providers the flexibility to implement and manage new services and business models profitably, and at will. NARUS' solutions are based on the company's Semantic Traffic Analysis (STA) technology, which captures comprehensive customer usage data directly from carrier-grade networks and transforms it into actionable information in real time. The patent-pending STA technology, which is the only technology that provides complete visibility for all Internet applications, is the foundation for applications that range from decision support to IP billing mediation. NARUS' customers include AT&T (NYSE: T), iBasis (NASDAQ: IBAS), MediaOne, Road Runner, and many other providers of broadband access, application hosting, mobile IP, and other services. NARUS is a founding member of the Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR) initiative, and is a leader in bringing open standards to the emerging IBI market. Privately held and based in Palo Alto, Calif., the company's web address is www.narus.com

Athene Software, Advanced Predictive Technology Platform, APT, APT Churn and iCRM are trademarks of Athene Software, Inc.