Blue Martini Software Announces Customer Interaction System Version 3.1 Extending Reach to International Markets.

Business, High Tech & Retail Editors

Internationalized Version Also Introduces New Modules That Connect

Wireless Customers, Debut Interactive Data Visualization, and Offer

Packaged Integration to Back Office Systems

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2000

BLUEPRINT 2000

Blue Martini Software, a provider of e-business applications that build brand everywhere, today unveiled version 3.1 of its flagship Customer Interaction System. Version 3.1 is internationalized to support multi-lingual, multi-currency websites for companies selling to broad markets. The latest version also includes new modules to support customer interaction across mobile wireless touchpoints, and the addition of tools for advanced data visualization including interactive multi-dimensional scatter plots. Version 3.1 also integrates website operations with back office fulfillment through a new integration suite helping link to SAP, PeopleSoft, and industry standards-based systems through the availability of packaged adapters.

The Customer Interaction System version 3.1 will be demonstrated at BluePrint 2000: Blue Martini's first annual user group event held in San Francisco, Calif. from April 30-May 3, 2000.

"Blue Martini understands the competitive pressures of global commerce and offers a fully-featured solution that meets the most critical business needs for international cross-channel commerce while minimizing implementation effort," said Kay Formanek, acting interim CEO ePearle Europe. "Pearle Europe founded its new clicks and mortar ePearle concept based on the need to blend traditional retail and on-line offerings. We selected the Blue Martini Customer Interaction System, implemented by Andersen Consulting, to provide a single foundation from which we could target and meet the needs of multiple geographical markets and still meet this objective."

Full Support for Localization Across Multiple Marketplaces Blue Martini believes companies expanding rapidly into global markets require a centrally managed solution for efficient publishing of locally branded websites. With the Customer Interaction System companies deploy a single website infrastructure to support sites that are localized for multiple markets, and those that need to be multi-lingual within single markets. Customers access product information and content in their preferred language, while the company maintains one set of assortments across all sites. This latest release supports western European languages as well as international currencies, payments and taxation.

"Gymboree believes in providing localized interactions with its customers. Blue Martini also provides a foundation from which we can rapidly expand into new international markets while leveraging our existing e-commerce infrastructure," said Susan Neal, vice president, business development, Gymboree. "The concept of localization can mean multi-lingual webstores tailored for a specific geographical market, or can extend to mean wireless in-store interaction with customers to reach them whenever and wherever they need. With Blue Martini Software, our company brings the shopping experience to the customer through the most optimal touchpoint."

Spanning New Customer Touchpoints, Improving Customer Service Version 3.1 supports in-store WHTML (radio frequency) mobile wireless to deliver up-to-date product and service information directly to customers and in-store sales staff. For example, customers can use in-store mobile wireless hand-held sales assistants to scan products of interest and assemble a gift list, accessible on a company's website, which can be emailed to the customer's friends. To help companies build customer loyalty through all touchpoints, the latest version of the Customer Interaction System also delivers full gift certificate functionality and supports enhanced frequent buyer programs. Version 3.1 also supports generation and tracking of return materials authorization (RMAs) to promote improved response to customer returns.

Multi-Dimensional Data Visualization Reveals Patterns of Customer Behavior

While customer loyalty programs can help retain customers, the effective use of customer data helps guide a company to deliver the right programs. In addition to reporting tools, the Customer Interaction System version 3.1 delivers new facilities for Data Visualization, complementing existing data mining, reporting and personalization capabilities. For example, on a two-dimensional scatterplot, a company can track customer spending during a month. For each hour of each day of the week, the total amount spent by all customers is depicted with the size of the square on the scatterplot; the average amount spent by each customer is depicted by the color of the same square. Business users can interactively rotate and zoom three-dimensional plots to uncover patterns allowing them to define and tune loyalty programs and other campaigns.

"These tools leverage both the incredible capacity of the human eye to detect patterns in data and the insight of experienced business users to deliver concrete business benefit," explains Monte Zweben, president and CEO of Blue Martini Software. "Data visualization serves as a powerful complement to data mining. Both help companies extract actionable information from product, content, and customer data--as well as clickstream and transaction histories."

Enhanced Privacy, Event Logging, and New Standard Reports Version 3.1 allows companies to collect customer clickstreams without recording customer-identifying information to protect the privacy of their customers. Version 3.1 also complements the capture of clickstream and transaction data in the previous version with the capacity to log specific events such as changes to shopping cart content, progress through checkout steps, and failed searches where a customer does not find sought after products.

New standard reports help companies to pinpoint now events are affecting sales. One new report summarizes searches and abandoned shopping carts. Others track top revenue-generating cities and countries, product revenues by currency, and page views per session. Site activity reports summarize revenue and interactions by month with full drilldown by week of month, by day of week, and by hour of day.

Packaged Adapters Accelerate Integration With Back Office Systems While supporting local language interactions and extending interaction to new customer touchpoints are crucial to attracting new customers, accurate fulfillment of transactions remains essential to ensuring repeat business and maintaining the integrity of a company's brand. Version 3.1 introduces the Blue Martini Integration module to link the Customer Interaction System with standards-based business applications (see announcement dated April 26, 2000: "Blue Martini Delivers Packaged Integration to SAP, PeopleSoft, and Industry Standard Interfaces"). Integration to ERP systems now enables BMS web site to execute complex business-to-business transactions. Moreover, with pre-built, pre-tested solutions, Blue Martini is reducing the costs of implementation and maintenance for customers using the adapters.

Product Availability

The Blue Martini Customer Interaction System version 3.1 is available on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Sun Solaris 2.7 and has database support for SQL Server 7.0 and Oracle 8.1.5. Pricing is available directly from Blue Martini Software.

About Blue Martini Software

Blue Martini Software provides enterprise-scale e-business applications that are designed to build brand everywhere. Strong brands attract and retain customers--generating higher revenues and increasing lifetime customer value. Companies use the Blue Martini Customer Interaction System to interact directly with customers on Web sites, through call centers, via e-mail, and over mobile wireless devices. Blue Martini business-to-consumer customers include craft.com, gazelle.com, gloss.com, Gymboree, Harley-Davidson, Levi Strauss & Co., and The Men's Wearhouse. Blue Martini business-to-business customers include Club Colors, Deluxe Corporation, and medchannel.com. For more information, contact Blue Martini Software at 2600 Campus Drive, San Mateo, Calif., 94403; phone [phone]; fax [phone]; www.bluemartini.com.

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