Avolent and Portal Software Form Alliance to Address Electronic Billing, Invoicing and Customer Care Needs of Telecommunications Industry.Business Editors & High Tech Writers SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 2001 Partnership Delivers Comprehensive EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment) Sending invoices to customers over the Internet. When payment is due, an e-mail is sent with a link to a Web page that contains the billing information and the payment services that are supported. and EIPP EIPP Electronic Invoice Payment and Presentment EIPP Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment Platforms Avolent, Inc., the leading vendor of Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment See EBPP. (EBPP), Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) and Interactive Customer Care (ICC ICC See: International Chamber of Commerce ) solutions, today announced an alliance with Portal Software Portal Software was founded in 1985 as Portal Information Network, one of the first ISPs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded by John Little. The company offered its own interface through modem access that featured Internet email. , Inc. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :PRSF PRSF Presidio of San Francisco (US National Park Service) PRSF Peoples Republic of San Francisco ). Targeting wireline, wireless, Internet/IP, broadband and cable industries, the partnership will enable Avolent to further extend its reach to telecom companies and other service providers. In turn, the alliance enhances Portal's ability to offer its customers a truly comprehensive business-to-business (B2B (Business to Business) Refers to one business communicating with or selling to another. See B2B e-commerce, B2C and B2G. B2B - business to business ) or business-to-consumer (B2C (Business to Consumer) Refers to a business communicating with or selling to an individual rather than a company. See B2B. ) EBPP solution to complement its own robust, real-time customer management and billing capability. Among customers using both technologies, Advanced Radio Telecom, a provider of broadband wireless IP access, recently selected software from Avolent and Portal. Steve Tarr, senior vice president and chief information officer at Advanced Radio Telecom, commented on the alliance, "Integrated with Portal's billing platform, the Avolent EBPP solution has enabled real-time electronic presentment of billing information and payment capabilities. Together, the Avolent and Portal solutions provide flexibility, performance and scalability allowing us to meet our business needs." "Telecommunications is a highly competitive industry and EBPP provides an ideal platform for increasing customer loyalty and retention," said Jorge Martin, senior director of strategic alliances at Avolent. "Portal's industry-leading billing software is very complementary to our own solutions. This partnership allows us to expand our footprint in the telecom space with a world-class software partner." John Janetos, director of strategic alliances at Portal Software added, "Many of our telecom customers recognize that the electronic bill or invoice is the ultimate customer touch point and represents a valuable two-way communication channel with the customer. By working with Avolent, our customers can use the billing or invoicing cycle to strengthen customer relationships, identify additional sources of revenue, and improve customer satisfaction while simultaneously reducing the operational costs associated with statement delivery and payment processing." The alliance between Avolent and Portal will offer service providers in the telecom industry a highly flexible, scalable billing and invoicing solution that offers end-users a personalized experience for Internet bill and invoice presentment and payment. About Portal Software Based in Cupertino, Calif., Portal is the leading provider of customer management and billing software for Internet and emerging, next-generation communications services. The company's real-time solution enables service providers to manage customers, support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services and collect money. Portal's customers include Qwest Communications, MCI (1) (Media Control Interface) A high-level programming interface from Microsoft and IBM for controlling multimedia devices. It provides commands and functions to open, play and close the device. (2) (Microwave Communications Inc. WorldCom, Inktomi, Deutsche Telekom's T-Online, Telenor Mobil AS, Sonera and France Telecom. Information about Portal and its products can be found at http://www.portal.com. About Avolent Avolent is the leading provider of standards-based software solutions for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP), Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) and Interactive Customer Care (ICC). Avolent's BizCast(TM) software provides benefits to all parts of the business-to-business delivery chain -- including billers, payers, service providers, exchanges and financial institutions. Through a unique, data-centric approach, BizCast automates the entire "invoice to pay" process by helping businesses present, route, reconcile, dispute, analyze and pay invoices online. The company's modular BillCast(TM) software suite enables relationship-centric billers to deploy secure, scalable solutions for personalized billing, statement presentment, payment and service delivery that increase the value of each customer interaction. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in San Francisco, Avolent helped pioneer the Open Financial Exchange (OFX OFX Open Financial Exchange OFX Outer Fix OFX Open Effects ) standard for online bill presentment and the thin consolidator model, and continues to champion open standards, including the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX IFX - ["Type Reconstruction with First-Class Polymorphic Values", J. O'Toole et al, SIGPLAN Notices 24(7):207-217 (Jul 1989)]. ). In October 2000 Avolent signed a definitive agreement to acquire Solant, a pioneer in the integration of advanced business-to-business and business-to-consumer EBPP and ICC applications. Avolent's customers are some of the largest billing organizations and service providers in the industry, including Advanced Radio Telecom, AT&T, CyberBills, DotsConnect, Intuit, MasterCard, Metavante, Spectrum, Trivergent, Wells Fargo and YourAccounts.Com. For more information, please visit www.avolent.com or call 415/553-6400. Avolent, BillCast and BizCast are registered trademarks of Avolent. All other product and company names are the property of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged. |
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