SAP and Alcatel to Create New Breed of Applications To Drive Customer Relationships.

Business Editors/Technology Writers

WALLDORF, Germany, & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2001

Companies to More Tightly Integrate Current CRM Offerings,

Announce Plans to Create Knowledge-Driven, Enterprisewide Solutions

for Intelligent Marketing, Sales, Service Activity

SAP AG (NYSE:SAP), Alcatel (NYSE:ALA), and Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel, today announced a strategic alliance aimed at improving the effectiveness of how businesses link their customers with contact center agents, knowledge workers and related front- and back-office processes for more efficient, personalized customer relationships.

SAP is the world's leading provider of e-business software solutions, and Genesys is the leading provider of universal queue contact center solutions for complete customer relationship management.

The alliance builds on an existing connection between mySAP.com(TM) from SAP and Genesys' call center capabilities, which have received positive market acceptance.

"In early December, ECI went live with an implementation of an integrated Genesys and SAP(TM) solution, operating in an inbound and outbound call center environment," said Marc van Gerwen, senior telematic consultant, ECI voor boeken en platen BV, a division of Bertelsmann. "With an interface between those two applications, we are able to share customer data between Genesys and SAP to make more intelligent customer routing decisions in the contact center. As a result, our customers are experiencing much more efficient and consistent customer service."

The near-term integration plans will expand to include an SAP connection to all the interaction types supported by Genesys' G6 solutions (i.e., voice, e-mail, fax, Web) with availability expected in the third quarter of 2001. Starting in early 2002, the two companies will introduce integrated work-force management, combining the SAP mySAP Human Resources (HR) solution with the Genesys WorkForce Management solution for managing contact center employees.

Further in 2002, the alliance will deliver a new breed of CRM solutions, jointly developed and marketed by both partners. The new solutions will, for the first time, provide mySAP Workplace users with access to all types of communication channels and interaction technology.

Traditionally, those capabilities have been available only to front-line contact center agents, leaving employees from other parts of a company disconnected from relevant customer interaction.

The SAP partnership is one of the most far-reaching agreements within Alcatel's enterprise activities, where Alcatel has been establishing partnerships with e-business software leaders both on its own and through Genesys. The company is re-engineering its enterprise voice and data communications business to focus on e-business and is linking up with leaders like SAP to offer customers state-of-the-art CRM solutions that enable businesses to work more effectively.

Increasing CRM Benefits

Over the near term, SAP and Genesys will build out their current integration between mySAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Genesys' leading routing and CTI solutions for contact centers. Genesys and SAP plan to add the full range of integrated, multimedia interaction management capabilities currently offered by Genesys into mySAP CRM, including universal queue customer routing, e-mail management, advanced Web chat capabilities, Internet services, voice-over-IP, and dynamic content sharing for more powerful agent-customer Web collaboration. The outbound telemarketing campaign capabilities of Genesys will also be available within mySAP.com, to allow any SAP application to be a source of information for outbound dialing campaigns.

SAP and Genesys also plan to integrate the mySAP HR solution with Genesys' Workforce Management solution to deliver a solution for managing contact center agents. That application maximizes employee productivity, while factoring in scheduling, training and payroll needs to help retain and build on current contact center resources. The integrated offering will be available in early 2002.

Software Will Set New Standard for

Customer-to-Enterprise Relationship

Today, mySAP CRM enables businesses to focus on individual customers and provides the information and resources needed to manage those relationships more efficiently and profitably. Through the alliance, SAP and Genesys will take the concept a step further by jointly developing and marketing products that combine advanced customer and interaction routing with the intimate customer knowledge from multiple enterprise applications and business processes -- from contact center and front office through to the back office. With a built-in capability to interact with customers and leveraging a constantly informed view of each individual customer, across the enterprise, businesses will have the power to more effectively communicate and deliver on customer engagement, transaction, fulfillment and service activity through any interaction type.

"SAP is pleased to be teaming up with the industry technology leader Genesys," said Rainer Zinow, vice president of the Customer Interaction Center Solution at SAP AG. "By integrating Genesys' software via open interfaces into mySAP CRM and the mySAP Workplace, we will be offering the market the leading solution that enables customers to touch all business processes in their interactions with their customers regardless of the means of point of contact."

"The combination of technology from SAP and Genesys closes the knowledge and interaction gap between the customer and key personnel in a company," said Max Raphalen, senior vice president of OEM relationships for Genesys. "Customer knowledge and customer interactions, which were once isolated in different departments, will be made consistently available throughout a company to deliver increased customer satisfaction and improved reactivity."

About Alcatel

Alcatel builds next-generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data networking solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 130,000 employees and sales of EURO 31 billion in 2000, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet at http://www.alcatel.com.

About Genesys

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an independent wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel (NYSE:ALA) (Paris:CGEP.PA), is the leading provider of universal queue contact center solutions for complete customer relationship management. Genesys offers an integrated suite of open, infrastructure-independent applications that manage interactions across all media types, networks and applications. Headquartered in San Francisco, Genesys has served Global 2000 enterprises and major telecommunications carriers and service providers for more than for 10 years. Today, Genesys has offices around the world and maintains a global network of partners, including BroadVision, IBM Global Services, Alcatel, Siebel and Siemens. Visit http://www.genesyslab.com or call 1-888-GENESYS (in the United States) for more information.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of e-business software solutions. Through the mySAP.com e-business platform, people in businesses around the globe are improving relationships with customers and partners, streamlining operations, and achieving significant efficiencies throughout their supply chains. Today, more than 13,000 companies in over 100 countries run more than 30,000 installations of SAP software. With subsidiaries in over 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com.)

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on beliefs of SAP management. Any statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views and assumptions of SAP, and all forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect future SAP financial results are discussed more fully in SAP filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including the SAP Annual Report on Form 20-F for 1999 filed with the SEC on April 7, 2000. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Copyright (c) 2001 SAP AG

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