PALO ALTO, SAN JOSE and SANTA BARBARA, Calif., June 5, 2000 - Hewlett-Packard Company, Cisco Systems, Inc. and Software.com today announced the first comprehensive Unified Communications (UC) solution, enabling service providers to increase customer satisfaction and revenue streams by delivering a broad range of enhanced messaging and call-management services. UC technology goes beyond unified messaging by adding real-time call management to both inbound and outbound communications and provides these solutions on a scalable, open Internet Protocol (IP) architecture that offers converged services, such as voice, video and data.

With the joint UC solution, service providers can collect, notify and deliver messages to customers, irrespective of their location, time or access device. Service providers benefit from the pre-packaged solution with rapid time-to-market deployments, greatly reduced risk, increased revenue streams, increased market penetration and improved customer loyalty.

The new solution includes key hardware and software technologies from HP, Cisco Systems and Software.com, and has been pre-tested to optimize performance, scalability and reliability. Several customers have announced that they have selected the new platform to provide their customers with enhanced communications service, including iBasis, a leading provider of Internet-based communications services; Cities On Line, a leading emerging new world service provider; and NHancement Technologies, a North American service provider and applications development company.

Components of the joint solution announced today include the following:

• HP Services for end-to-end solution deployment and support;
• HP solution management, including HP OpenView for bulletproof management of service providers' environments at the network, system, application, performance and SLA levels, and HP Smart Internet Usage for usage metering;
• HP hardware, including HP-UX(1) server platform and HP SureStore E Disk Array;
• Cisco's uOne software and Cisco connectivity hardware, enabling service providers to offer their customers a broad range of UC services; and
• Software.com's InterMail platform, providing the highly scalable components necessary for messaging access, notification, data storage and LDAP Directory services in the UC solution.

"Today's announcement is an important step toward the realization of Chapter 2 of the Internet," said Sebastiano Tevarotto, vice president and general manager of HP's Network and Service Provider Business Unit. "Through the delivery of service provider hosted e-services via the Internet, we're working to make the end user more efficient. This joint solution is a perfect example, enabling the recipient to control communications through one universally accessible mailbox, regardless of device, time or location."

"The rapid growth of Internet applications and mobile users has created the requirement for a next generation of value-added solutions that combine voice and Internet applications," said Eugene Lee, vice president of marketing for the Internet Communications Software Group at Cisco Systems. "Through the Cisco, HP and Software.com relationship, we are creating a scalable IP-based solution that allows service providers to quickly and easily deploy UC solutions to help customers achieve increased responsiveness by taking control of how, when and from whom they receive messages."

"This end-to-end solution goes beyond traditional unified messaging capabilities by enabling service providers to offer a scalable solution that effectively meets the unique communication needs of businesses and consumers," said John MacFarlane, chief executive officer of Software.com. "By partnering with Cisco and HP, we are able to provide a proven solution that will be supported worldwide."

Delivery and Support

Interlocking, pre-integrated and pre-tested components from each company allow service providers the flexibility to create solutions that fit each customer need from the small-office or home user to the largest enterprise customer. HP Services will manage the complete solution life cycle, from planning and design through integration, implementation, support and maintenance.

Availability

The joint solution is available today from HP.