Redknee announces alliance with Microsoft to increase market opportunities

TORONTO and BARCELONA, Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Redknee (TSX:RKN), a leading provider of business-critical billing and charging software and solutions for communications service providers, is pleased to announce an alliance with Microsoft that will extend Redknee's reach into the global markets that Microsoft serves, while also enhancing the Microsoft portfolio of partner-led industry solutions.

This alliance will bring about a transformation in the billing OSS/BSS space by providing the first and only real-time expanded software solution with a set of benefits that include faster time-to-market for new services, improved business decision making through advanced reporting and analytics, lower total cost of ownership, and a convergent billing and customer care solution for communications service providers.

"The announcement between Redknee and Microsoft is an alignment of the offerings of Redknee TCB and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for addressing the market with an integrated CRM and billing solution. To maintain customer satisfaction, real-time rating & charging must be tightly integrated with customer care in all forms including live agents, IVR, and/or web portals. Such solutions must also address collaboration needs involving both retail services and wholesale content partners for maximum cost benefit and ease in working with customers," stated Karl Whitelock, Senior Consulting Analyst for OSS/BSS Global Competitive Strategies at Stratecast.

Redknee's Turnkey Converged Billing solution will now integrate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other Microsoft technologies, providing communications service providers flexibility on solution architecture to best addresses their business needs. The combined solution will provide a much broader and more substantial set of capabilities to the telecoms market; an end-to-end converged billing and customer care solution that now includes the addition of extensive customer management and sales and marketing tools.

Lucas Skoczkowski, Redknee's Chief Executive Officer commented:

"We are delighted to announce this joint initiative with Microsoft. Leveraging Microsoft's powerful Dynamics CRM platform with Redknee's real-time billing and customer care software solution brings a broader set of business-critical tools to the market. This partnership will increase opportunities for Redknee and Microsoft as we leverage Microsoft's global expertise and partner channels for a broader reach into new regions, helping to expand our share of the market."

Redknee will utilize the flexible tools and technology within Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SQL Server 2008 R2, BizTalk Server 2009, Windows Server 2008, and other Microsoft technologies to bring to market one of the industry's most comprehensive, real-time converged billing solutions - helping service providers to better understand, segment, and market to their subscriber base and deliver real-time transaction capabilities and customer usage data across their organizations.

Terry McGuigan, managing director, telecommunications industry, Communications Sector at Microsoft Corp. comments:

"As services converge and churn causes revenues to erode, telecommunications service providers must transform their operations and business models to deliver new services to market faster and at a lower cost. Microsoft's approach is to partner with industry leaders in software and systems integration to deliver the next generation of billing and customer care solutions. Our relationship with Redknee enables service providers to reduce time to market for new offerings, improve the subscriber experience and ultimately monetize these value-added services."

For more information about Redknee and their solutions, please go to www.redknee.com.

About Redknee:

Redknee is a leading global provider of innovative communication software products, solutions and services. Redknee's award-winning solutions enable operators to monetize the value of each subscriber transaction while personalizing the subscriber experience to meet mainstream, niche and individual market segment requirements. Redknee's revenue generating solutions provide advanced converged billing, rating, charging and policy for voice, messaging and new generation data services to over 70 network operators in over 50 countries. Established in 1999, Redknee Solutions Inc. (TSX: RKN) is the parent of the wholly-owned operating subsidiary Redknee Inc. and its various subsidiaries. References to Redknee refer to the combined operations of those entities. For more information, visit www.redknee.com.

SOURCE Redknee Solutions Inc.