Calico Technology's Concinity Chosen by Racal Data Group to Provide Electronic Commerce Solutions for Customers and Sales Force; Concinity Enables Nested Product Modeling and Configuration Solution.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 10, 1997--Calico Technology, a leading provider of electronic commerce solutions for interactive selling and technology enabled buying of complex products and services, today announced Racal Data Group has selected Calico's Concinity electronic commerce software as the foundation for implementing an interactive buying and selling solution for its networking products.

With the win of Racal Data Group, Calico Technology further strengthens its leadership position in the networking equipment market. Calico also counts Cisco Systems, Cabletron and U.S. Robotics among its customers.

Racal Data Group, which offers products and services that provide secure and managed access to multimedia information networks and enables customers to transition to ISDN and other emerging technologies, chose Concinity based on its ability to improve the efficiency of Racal's sales force and channel partners, by enabling them for the first time to do a requirements-based network configuration over the Internet. The system will lower the overall cost of selling and increase customer satisfaction by decreasing the effort and potential for errors in collecting customer requirements, designing a network, and configuring an order. The same Concinity software will allow Racal to expand market share by enabling interactive buying over the Internet.

Racal will use Concinity to develop an Interactive Selling System for its sales force. Racal sales reps will be able to analyze requirements, configure solutions, develop quotations, place orders, generate proposals, and access marketing data via laptops/desktops or CD-ROMs. Racal will also use Concinity to develop an Interactive Buying System allowing its customers to analyze requirements, configure solutions, develop quotations, and order products through an electronic commerce Web site.

"Concinity will be the focal point for creating a cutting-edge interactive buying system for Racal's customers and an interactive selling systems for its sales organization, which will give Racal a distinct business advantage," said Tom Giordano, Racal Data Group's CIO. "This deployment will redefine how complex networking products are bought and sold."

Creating an Internal Solution

In choosing Concinity, Racal required a solution that would enable the program management teams, those most familiar with the product offerings, to own the responsibility for developing and maintaining the product models. Concinity Workbench offers a distinct advantage in that models can be implemented with relative simplicity and efficiency without requiring a skilled programmer. Racal believes this advantage will allow them to be more responsive and will expedite rollouts of products.

"Concinity provides a superior solution that will help Racal to strengthen its position in the networking market," said Giordano. "Working with Calico is a perfect fit that will enable Racal to lay a new foundation of customer service and product excellence."

Developing a Nested Solution

The Racal installation marks the first time Calico has developed a "nested" product modeling and network configuration solution from within a standard tool; whereby, the network is configured as a whole, not through custom configuration of individual network devices. Since most customers do not know in advance what the final network will look like, Concinity's nested configuration helps create a standardized development environment that allows the model to interactively develop the network configuration based on a specific Racal product.

"Configuration tools such as Calico's Concinity provide both top- and bottom-line results for vendors. Revenue wise, the ability to provide clients with rapid and accurate designs is key, because you can strike while the iron's hot and the client is motivated to buy," said Ellen Carney, director and principal analyst of networking integration support services for Dataquest. "Bottom line, it lowers costs in several ways: it decreases the number of expensive RMA's and give-aways because of bad designs, it lowers channel partner training and technical design support costs, and it lowers the cost of sales because the customer can configure and place orders via a Web interface."

About Racal Data Group

The Racal Data Group is a unified organization of Racal's leading data communications companies around the world. The Group offers products and services that provide secure and managed access to multimedia information networks, and enables customers to transition to ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM and other emerging technologies. Racal's expertise in management systems, data security and modularity differentiates the company's products in the marketplace and offers customers a competitive advantage.

Racal offers complete network services including, integration, project management, installation and maintenance. In the field of managed network services, Racal fully manages and operates entire network infrastructures for such organizations as the British Government, the UK Lottery and other government and commercial entities.

The Racal Data Group reported worldwide revenues of $657 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1996. Parent company, Racal Electronics Plc is a leading international electronics firm with revenues of $1.6 billion and more than 100 principal electronics companies worldwide.

Additional company information can be found at http://www.racal.com/rdg/

About Calico Technology

Calico Technology, located in San Jose, Calif., is a leading provider of electronic commerce solutions that enable interactive buying and selling of complex products and services over a variety of platforms. Calico develops and markets Concinity, software designed to allow sales organizations, customers and end users to analyze requirements, configure solutions, develop quotations, place orders, generate proposals and access marketing data via CD-ROMS, laptops/desktops and the Internet. Concinity allows Calico's customers to achieve increased sales rep efficiency, reduced sales training costs, increased accuracy of product/service configurations, reduced error rates in orders, decreased sales cycle times and increased customer satisfaction.

Additional company information can be found at http://www.calicotech.com .

CONTACT: Calico Technology

Michalene Adams, 408/975-7449

[e-mail]

or

Alexander Communications, Inc.

Hani Durzy or Usher Lieberman, 415/923-1660

[e-mail]

[e-mail]