XACCT and MaxBill partner to deliver support for enhanced network services; MaxBill integrates XACCTusage to provide a total solution for service providers.

M2 PRESSWIRE-4 February 2000-MAXBILL: XACCT and MaxBill partner to deliver support for enhanced network services; MaxBill integrates XACCTusage to provide a total solution for service providers (C)1994-2000 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:02022000

Israel and Santa Clara, California -- XACCT Technologies Inc. the leading provider of business infrastructure solutions for IP networks and MaxBill Ltd., an innovative provider of cost-effective OSS Customer Care and Billing solutions for the converging telecommunications and utilities industries, announced the formation of a strategic partnership. Under the agreement, the two companies will integrate the MaxBill Customer Care and Billing system with XACCTusageTM, offering service providers a complete package for convergent services billing.

The integration of MaxBill and XACCTusageTM will enable MaxRate, MaxBill's sophisticated rating engine, to harness billable usage records captured and enhanced by XACCT's innovative IP Mediation technology. With this combined solution, Service Providers will be able to define, offer and bill for enhanced value-added services and creative service packages. Customers will receive an invoice for their Internet services in formats similar to the telephone bills, based on various transactions and parameters, such as bandwidth, content and quality of service.

"Moving into the next generation of Internet-based services, traditional flat rate pricing and billing models are fast becoming obsolete," said Eric Gries, CEO of XACCT Technologies. "Service Providers are looking for ways to develop and deploy new revenue-generating services, and to price them in meaningful ways. We're very pleased to partner with MaxBill and provide our customers with a complete solution enabling them do so, cost-effectively."

"As enhanced network services, such as IP telephony, streaming multimedia and high-end data transfer emerge, the need for Service Providers to have the tools to offer and bill for these services increases dramatically. The power of XACCTusageTM to extract meaningful usage records coupled with the strength of MaxBill to incorporate these and additional usage records from other sources into the overall functionality of MaxBill will deliver a comprehensive solution for Service Providers to offer these and other diversified and convergent services," said Michah Himmelman, President of MaxBill.

Comprehensive Data for Billing

XACCT's flagship product, XACCTusageTM, provides a single point of interface between the IP network infrastructure and the Customer Care and Billing applications for usage data collection as well as automated service provisioning. This multi-source, multi-layer mediation solution captures comprehensive and accurate usage data from a multitude of network elements such as routers, switches, firewalls, and application servers and refines it into XACCT Detail Records or XDRs that are similar to the Call Detail Records (CDRs) generated by telephone switches (exchanges). Service providers can use XDRs to generate flexible, innovative pricing models and usage-based bills.

By leveraging the end-to-end, automated User Account Provisioning capabilities of XACCTusageTM, service providers can implement self-care or self-registration programs and thus lower call-centre costs. Automated provisioning also lets service providers benefit from instant service activation and revenue capture.

About MaxBill Ltd.

MaxBill Ltd. is an innovative provider of cost-effective OSS Customer Care and Billing solutions for the converging telecommunications and utilities industries. MaxBill's Customer Care and Billing system gives Service Providers with customer-centric functionality to attract and expand profitable customer relationships. MaxBill provides pro-active functionality and integrated tools to support the processes of customer initiation, customer activation, customer care, order management, service provisioning, usage rating, invoicing, accounts receivable, collection and reporting. MaxBill is headquartered in Israel and has subsidiaries in North America and Europe. For current product and company information, please visit MaxBill's web site at www.maxbill.com.

About XACCT Technologies XACCT Technologies, Inc. is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. The company develops a new class of intelligent software solutions that enable Service Providers to design and execute innovative revenue-generating services and programs.

XACCT and its product have received the following awards and citations:

* Data Communications magazine recognised XACCT as one of the "Top 25 Hot Start-ups of 1998" and named XACCTusage as one of the "Hot Products of 1999." [middle dot] XACCT was one of the six companies named to the "Winners Circle: Software Companies to Watch" in Telecommunications magazine's March 1999 issue.

* XACCTusageTM received "Most Innovative Billing Product" recognition at the Billing Systems 1999 Conference and Exhibition in April 1999.

* Internet Telephony magazine selected XACCTusage as "Product of the Year" in the Billing category in its November 1999 issue.

A privately held corporation, XACCT is funded by venture capital investors.

More information is available at http://www.xacct.com.

CONTACT: Tony Miller, Business Manager MaxBill Ltd. Tel: +1 972 3 930 55 20 Fax: +1 972 3 930 55 21 e-mail: tonym@maxbill.com WWW: http://www.maxbill.com Anil Uberoi, VP Marketing, XACCT Technologies Tel: +1 408 654 99 00 Fax: +1 408 654 99 04 e-mail: anil@xacct.com WWW: http://www.xacct.com Charlotte Gutman, CGP Tel: +32 2 375 21 00 Fax: +32 2 375 91 62 e-mail: cgp@cgp.be www.cgp.be Sharon Frais C.G.P. - Communications for Genial Products s.a. Tel: +32 2 375 21 00 Fax: +32 2 375 91 62 e-mail: sharon@cgp.be WWW: http://www.cgp.be

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