ClearMarbles and ClearCast software product background.CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 1997-- Market Situation: Deregulation Deregulation The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. Notes: Traditional areas that have been deregulated are the telephone and airline industries. For decades, it was business as usual at the old Bell Operating System operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. , which currently consists of AT&T and the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against American Telephone & Telegraph. History (RBOCs). Because these players did not compete with each other and held a dominant share of their own markets, servicing more than 80 percent of all business customers, they offered similar services and turned to the same software suppliers, Bellcore and the old Bell Laboratories. Now, the impact of the Telecommunications Act There are several laws named the Telecommunications Act
As a result, they are turning to a new class of independent software vendors offering new solutions that help them deliver new services more cost-effectively to their customers, helping them retain existing customers and gain new ones. Competition Forces "Front-Office" and "Back-Office" Improvements Deregulation is forcing carriers to compete in two separate markets: retail customer services to end-users, and wholesale network access to interconnecting carriers, resellers and their own retail groups. In order to compete, they must develop new strategies to lower costs by streamlining their legacy "back-office" network operations while striving to constantly improve the performance of these systems. At the same time, they must invest heavily in their "front-office" customer services that interact with end users. They must come up with new and better ways to deliver value-added services. With the introduction of its new ClearCast(tm) and ClearMarbles(tm) software, Clear Communications Clear Communications was a telecommunications company based in New Zealand. Until merging into Telstra's operations in 2001, it was the biggest rival to Telecom New Zealand. has added a set of "front-office" solutions to its existing, industry-leading Clearview(r) Network Window(tm) suite of software solutions for the "back office." Back-office functions, normally controlled by proprietary Operation Support Systems (OSS Oss (ôs), city (1994 pop. 62,141), North Brabant prov., S Netherlands; chartered 1399. It is a significant industrial center. Manufactures include meat products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electrical equipment, and metalware. ), are akin to the legacy mainframe software that ran Fortune 500 companies before the wave of personal-computer-based client-server computing computing - computer hit. Legacy OSS software solutions are big, stable and slow to adapt to rapid implementation of new services. Carriers deploying new services require new client-server software solutions capable of integrating with the legacy OSS while offering the cost and performance benefits of the new, open client-server platforms. Clearview Network Window applications provide the industry's most comprehensive and sophisticated intelligent surveillance solutions that seamlessly integrate with the legacy OSS software systems and provide a migration path for the carriers to the new client-server, Web-enabled paradigm. Carriers are scrambling See scramble. to build more customer loyalty and capture new customers by delivering sophisticated, new, high-performance services to customers easily and cost effectively. Their front offices are rapidly migrating to these newer client-server technologies, and they are taking advantage of new telecommunications technologies capable of delivering more bandwidth to customers' desktops. These services include broadband data communications data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications make it possible for one computer to "talk" with another. , video conferencing See videoconferencing. (communications) video conferencing - A discussion between two or more groups of people who are in different places but can see and hear each other using electronic communications. , enhanced telephony and other services requiring a fiber-optic-based broadband infrastructure. The new ClearCast and ClearMarbles software applications provide "push" and "pull" Web enhancements to Clear's industry-leading customer network management system that delivers intelligent surveillance tools directly to end-users. It is at the cutting edge of carriers' efforts to get closer to their customers by offering end-users a window through the World Wide Web, directly into the virtual private fiber networks that carriers provide for their customers to carry broadband services See broadband and broadband service provider. . The ClearCast and ClearMarbles Answer To The Customer Service Challenge ClearMarbles and ClearCast software offer a win-win situation for both carriers and their customers by providing an extensible platform that opens up a carrier's proprietary support system to customer network management through intelligent surveillance via the World Wide Web. The two new software suites are the industry's first customer network management software applications enabling telecommunications carriers troadband performance of their fiber networks. Utilizing a standard Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. , the company's new ClearMarblinks directly from the carrier's network management system. And the company's new ClearCast customer network Window family of client-server network mant, early warning, reporting, fault isolation, , which enables carriers' customers to look directly at performance data generated by the transport facilitsktop through Internet Web-access capabilities: -- ClearMarbles are software plug-ins to standard Netscape or Microsoft browsers that enable customers to pull network performance information from carrier Web pages. The carrier page recognizes the customer's account and automatitirely new degree of customer intimacy and forge stronger partnerships with their subscribers than ever bear quarter of 1997. They are: -- Network Window Status ClearMarble -- Provides customers with a summaryeceive an indication of what the carrier is do Additional ClearMarbles will be added ins are expected to ship by the end of 1997. Because Clear Communications pioneered the concept of delete suite of Web-based client applications providing the industry's most comprehensive intelligent surveilrs using ClearMarbles tools to customize their will be able to set up their own broadcast ch information directly to their subscribers' deofferings, giving them the freedom to change thents to existing services more quickly; target to provide the carrier operator with a comprehener network management to end-users because no -friendly format. Clear Communications was the first to solve that dilemma and now provides Web-based customer network management with ClearCast and ClearMarbles softwink, the new software lets carriers open up theging into a Netscape or Microsoft Explorer broe gives them an added feeling of security and control. Future additions to the software suites will allow the carrier to answer the majority of a customer's network cfrustration and time wasted making repeated phoacking all communications with the carrier. erver to provide a segmented customer view. Various management details are displayed to the customer via an HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. document. The modularity of the ClearMarbles software solutions allows the information being disseminated disseminated /dis·sem·i·nat·ed/ (-sem´i-nat?ed) scattered; distributed over a considerable area. dis·sem·i·nat·ed adj. Spread over a large area of a body, a tissue, or an organ. to be adapted to the user task currently being performemanagement applications as well as a software development solution for carriers to create their own Web pages quickly and easily. ClearCast software allows carriers to customize broadcast applications. This software development capalearCast software will operate in conjunction with Clea rview LegacyGateway(tm) to simplify access to legacy operational support system information. Creating Custom ClearMarbles Software Applications Step-By-Step Application Development To develop its own ClearMarbles applications, the carrier follows an easy, step-by-step process which is no more difficult than updating a Web page or cuss a customer Web page using standard page devee from Clear) they want inserted into their page contents, and adjust their configuration details. -- ClearMarbles display a window on the user's Web page. This window is only filled when the required data is available on the CleL security to ensure secure access and encryption The reversible transformation of data from the original (the plaintext) to a difficult-to-interpret format (the ciphertext) as a mechanism for protecting its confidentiality, integrity and sometimes its authenticity. Encryption uses an encryption algorithm and one or more encryption keys. of private network information. -- The carrier can control who can access the data through a combination of user security and availability of the plug-in ClearMarbles module in the customer's Web browser. If the plug-in module is not installed on the user's computer, the carrier's Web page will be displayed, but the application window will not con to access any of the Clear server's information on the carrier's Web page, based on its individual profile. -- The Clear server collects real-time information that is earmarked for existing operational support systems, and exhibits this information relative to the user's network in the ClearMarbles application window which is displayed on the user's Web browser. -- Information within the ClearMarbles application display is updated dynamically as network status changes. -- A user can interact with a specific ClearMarbles application to allow informational queries to be performed and data to be entered. About Clear Communications A privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. , Clear Communications Corporation is the leader in customer network management applications for the telecommunications industry, providing software-based solutions that enable the deployment of advanced communications services. Customers include Ameritech, AT&T, GTE GTE General Telephone & Electronics GTE Génie Thermique et Énergie (French) GTE Gas Turbine Engine GTE Global Tropospheric Experiment GTE Geothermal Energy GTE Gas Turbine Efficiency plc (Sweden & USA) , Pacific Bell, Sprint, Time Warner Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), formerly known as AOL Time Warner, is the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered in New York City, with major operations in film, television, publishing, Internet service and telecommunications. Communications, US WEST and other major local exchange and interexchange carriers See IXC. . The company is headquartered in Chicago, with offices located nationwide. For more information, contact Clear at 847-317-2500, or access the company's Internet address There are two kinds of addresses that are widely used on the Internet. One is a person's e-mail address, and the other is the address of a Web site, which is known as a URL. Following is an explanation of Internet e-mail addresses only. For more on URLs, see URL and Internet domain name. at: www.clear.com . -0- Note to Editors: Clearview is a registered trademark of Clear Communications Corporation. Clearview Network Window, ClearCast, Clear Marbles and Clearview LegacyGateway are trademarks oRelations Mary-Margaret Wantuck 617-450-4300 mary-margaret.wantuck@cbpr.com KEYWORD: ILLINOIS INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMED ComEd Commonwealth Edison COMED Combined Map and Electronic Display COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS TELECOMMUNICATIONS INTERACTIVE/MULTIMEDIA/INTERNET PRODUCT REPEATS: New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of 212-752-9600 or 800-221-2462; Boston 617-236-4266 or 800-225-2030; SF 415-986-4422 or 800-227-0845; LA 310-820-9473 |
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