Best of Show Awards Presented Last Week At ICCM/CRM Solutions 2001; 15 Exhibiting Companies Took Top Honors At the Largest Customer Contact Show in the World.

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

CRM Solutions

ICCM Conf. & Expo

SANTA ANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 2001

International Call Center Management (ICCM) Conference & Exposition is the largest and most comprehensive event for call center managers across the globe and is produced by the Advanstar CRM Group, a division of Advanstar Communications.

The Best of Show Awards program presented by ICCM/Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions and Customer Interface Magazine was presented at the 13th Annual ICCM 2001 Conference & Exposition last week in Chicago. The primary intent of the awards is to recognize the exhibitors who have created products, technologies and services that are driving productivity for their customers.

The Best of Show Awards were divided into 15 categories, with only one winner declared in each. "This is a highly coveted award. It is a head to head competition revealing which products stand out in the industry. This is an excellent platform for exhibitors to showcase their products," said Darlene Gudea, publisher of Customer Interface Magazine. When submitting their applications, exhibiting companies were required to provide a product description, introduction date, list of unique qualities and expected results and benefits for end-users.

Awards were judged on-site at ICCM/CRM Solutions 2001 during the first two days of the show by a panel of independent industry analysts. The judges toured the exhibit hall and visited with each nominated company and had the opportunity to ask questions, watch demonstrations and compare each product and company against others in its category.

Paul Stockford of Saddletree Research, a judge for the past three Best of Show Awards, was impressed with the products and technologies in this year's competition.

"What I saw were solutions that made sense, were deployable, cost justifiable and had the type of vision to make viable products well into the future," said Stockford.

Other judges included: Maggie Klenke, Getronics; Paul Anderson, Author and Consultant; Sheila McGee-Smith, McGee-Smith Analytics; Monique Bozeman, MB & Associates; Penny Reynolds, The Call Center School; Rose Dupreez, Monitor Management Consultants; and Gerry Barber, Annexio.

The ICCM/CRM Solutions & Customer Interface Magazine Best of Show Awards for 2001 were presented to the following companies:

Category: Best Call Center Automation System
Company:  Intecom
Product:  Centergy 1.2

Category: Best Call Routing Product
Company:  Telephony@work
Product:  CallCenter@anywhere

Category: Best Integration Solution
Company:  Siemens Enterprise Networks
Product:  Siemens CRM Ready Kit for Siebel

Category: Best Knowledge Management Tool
Company:  TPG Technologies
Product:  SoftMetric

Category: Best Contact Center Product
Company:  Aspect Communications
Product:  IP Contact Suite

Category: Best CRM Solution
Company:  Astute Solutions
Product:  PowerCenter Suite

Category: Best Customer Self Help Product
Company:  Maaya
Product:  Biz Connect

Category: Best e-CRM/Web Integration Product
Company:  PeopleSoft
Product:  PeopleSoft 8 CRM Support

Category: Best Workstation Product
Company:  Texas Digital Systems
Product:  QuickCom Enterprise/QuickNET

Category: Best Hosted Service
Company:  eTelecare International
Product:  eTelecare

Category: Best Monitoring Product
Company:  Witness Systems
Product:  eQuality

Category: Best Response & Feedback System
Company:  Performix Technologies
Product:  Emvolve Performance Manager

Category: Best Speech Recognition/IVR Product
Company:  Speechworks International
Product:  OpenSpeech Recognizer 1.0

Category: Best Training Solution
Company:  Knowlagent
Product:  Virtual Customer

Category: Best Workforce Management or
          Scheduling Product
Company:  Blue Pumpkin Software
Product:  Director-Enterprise 3.0

About Advanstar's CRM Group

Advanstar is the world's largest producer of customer contact events. The practice includes: Customer Relationship Management, Computer Telephony, Call Center, Field Service, Internet Commerce, and Telecommunications. Each of the 18 events are leaders in their marketplace, providing participating companies with an unmatched global outreach program. The conferences are considered the best of the best -- timely, targeted and rich in content. The expositions are the largest and most comprehensive, providing attendees a one-stop-shopping experience.

For additional information about other Advanstar CRM Group events, contact customer service at 800/265-5665 or 218/723-9130, or visit the Web site at www.callvoice.com

About Customer Interface Magazine

Customer Interface, the pioneer in the call center and CRM publishing field, is a management magazine for senior executives responsible for call center, CRM and e-business initiatives. Customer Interface is recognized as the source of unbiased information about new strategies and technologies. Customer Interface addresses the urgent issues that executives confront by publishing news, research, analysis, feature articles, case studies, cost studies, and product reviews.

About Advanstar Communications

Advanstar Communications Inc. is a worldwide business information company serving specialized markets with high-quality information resources and integrated marketing solutions. Advanstar has 106 top business and professional publications, 108 exhibitions and conferences, 79 Web sites, and a wide range of direct marketing, database and reference products and services. Advanstar serves targeted market sectors in such industries as telecommunications, CRM/call center, e-commerce, retail, travel, hospitality, beauty, fashion, healthcare, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and processing. The company has more than 1,400 employees and currently operates from multiple offices in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. For more information on Advanstar Communications, visit www.advanstar.com.