Lucent Technologies announces Development Partner Program for IP exchange systems; four software companies offer applications

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Lucent Technologies announces Development Partner Program for IP exchange systems; four software companies offer applications

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced a Development Partner Program to support third-party software vendors in designing applications for IP Exchange Systems (IPES), Lucent's family of Internet telephony communications systems that converge voice, data and fax over local and wide area networks. Under the program, participating software developers, hardware vendors, value added resellers and systems integrators write applications for use on IPES products, which run on open, standards-based platforms designed to help streamline application development.

In addition, four charter members of the program - Tapestry Integration Specialists, MIND CTI, ActiveTouch and SoundLogic - have developed applications that will be available for the IP ExchangeComm™ system, the first product in the IPES family, which is scheduled for release in September 1999.

"IP ExchangeComm runs on a Microsoft® Windows™ NT server, a platform preferred by many software developers," said Brian Allain, Lucent Technologies Internet Business Systems vice president. "The Development Partner Program encourages software developers to take advantage of IP Exchange Systems' open, standards-based architecture to create applications that will move communications to a new level. Given the developer-friendly nature of the technology, we think the four applications announced today are just the tip of the iceberg."

Tapestry's CT*Suite is a series of products that provide basic computer telephony functionality, including screen pop and incoming call routing. MIND CTI's PhonEx Pro provides a call accounting application with optional traffic analysis capability. WebEx from ActiveTouch is an Internet collaboration application that can be used in a variety of business contexts, such as e-commerce, customer care and multimedia conferencing. Interaction Suite by SoundLogic is a rules-based multimedia customer interaction suite for e-commerce and e-business that can route and manage multiple forms of customer communications, including e-mail, Internet-based interactions and fax.

"The open architecture made IP ExchangeComm an excellent platform for Tapestry's CT*Suite," said John Mandelker, president of Tapestry Integration Specialists. "The two products make it easy to provide affordable, scalable, big business capabilities to small business."

Next-generation applications, such as WebEx from ActiveTouch, are changing the way businesses communicate internally and with customers. "IP Exchange Systems and WebEx demonstrate the power of a converged communications infrastructure to create true IP-based, multi-media business collaboration", said Subrah Iyar, CEO of ActiveTouch.

The Development Partner Program provides members with software development kits, technical support and co-marketing opportunities in addition to conducting compliance testing for third-party products. For more information or to apply to the program, go to http://www.lucent.com/ipes or send an e-mail message to ipesdevpartner@lucent.com.

The Lucent IP ExchangeComm system includes call manager software, which provides routing and PBX-like telephony features; the Lucent IP Exchange Adapter, which converts telephones and fax machines into IP clients; and an IP Telephony gateway card, which connects the systems to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Initially, the system will support up to 96 phones and fax machines, and the system's scalability will allow businesses to share resources across multiple locations, eliminating the need to buy, maintain and administer a server at each site.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at http://www.lucent.com.

For more information, reporters may contact:

Mary Thiele
Lucent Technologies
908-953-6152 (office)
800-759-8888, PIN-1247468 (pager)
Email:mthiele@lucent.com

Marianne Carlton
Lucent Technologies
908-953-7520 (office)
Email:macarlton@lucent.com