Billing World and OSS Today Magazine Announces OSS World 2002 Excellence Awards Winners

(McLean, Va.-Feb. 5, 2002) The editors of TeleStrategies' Billing World and OSS Today magazine are pleased to announce the recipients of the OSS World 2002 Excellence Awards - recognizing the best in the OSS telecommunications industry. The winners were announced at the OSS World 2002 Excellence Awards reception at the Hyatt Regency San Diego on Monday, Feb. 4, which kicked-off the TeleStrategies' OSS World 2002 Conference & Exhibition in San Diego, Calif.

And the winners are:

Best Overall OSS Product-- Granite Systems
The best overall product not only enjoys a reputation for top quality but it also sets high standards for others to aspire. Granite Systems' Xpercom is a service resource management system that supports data and voice technologies and can store and handle all physical and logical resources. By using this system, providers can reduce provisioning times and operations cost by 30 percent, and reduce capital equipment needs by 10 percent. Granite has more than 50 customers worldwide, which include Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless, Deutsch Telecom, Colt, Sphera Optical and Advanced Telecom Group.

Best New OSS Company-Valaran Corporation
This newcomer's corporate mission, product, leadership and accomplishments represent the innovation and entrepreneurship that characterizes the OSS industry. Valaran has financing from four equity investment firms and is one of RHK's ""Names to Watch."" Its v-aerial application integration framework, based on Sun's JINI technology, integrates at the business process layer, rather than the application function layer to allow providers the freedom to implement any OSS components they choose. In addition to a great product, Valaran provides end-to-end project management, release planning, process analysis and user training to guarantee success.

Best New OSS Product-Trendium
The telecom market has dramatically changed over the past couple of years and to win contracts, new products must be innovative and able to support multiple services and technologies. Trendium's ServicePath meets these requirements. It is a policy-based software suite that lets providers layer service management features over a variety of networks such as IP, cable, ATM, Frame Relay, DSL and wireless. ServicePath brings real-time SLA management and service assurance to the network and also features an open architecture to make integration with other OSS components easier.

Customer Success Story-Compaq Computer Corporation
Compaq had its work cut out for it in the Con Edison Communications deployment, which involves delivering a fiber network to customers in the New York metro area. By 2005, the network will interconnect more than 1,000 commercial buildings, POPs, and Verizon central offices spanning an area between New York and New Jersey. ConEd will be able to deliver a range of managed services for the carrier community, with Compaq's Telecommunications Management Information Platform, which provides customer care, network engineering, order management, SLA management and a financial system. To prove its success, the TeMIP system was able to handle 4,000 simultaneous alarms in trial.

Best Order Management System-Sigma Systems
Service providers rely on Sigma Systems' order management system to help capture new market share, increase customer loyalty, and ensure back-end systems run smoothly. Sigma's systems are able to meet the industry requirement to introduce new interactive services to subscribers quickly and effectively. Sigma has an impressive customer list, which includes six of North America's largest MSOs, who serve more than 35 million subscribers using Sigma's order management system.

Best Provisioning System-Syndesis
Nothing speaks louder than the bottom line. The faster a provider can bring new services to market and provision customers, the quicker it can generate revenue. Syndesis has had several recent contract wins with Swisscom, Bell Canada, Qwest Communications, US LEC and Yipes. The deployment of NetProvision at Swisscom is an example of provisioning success. The software ended the carrier's days of manual provisioning based on static inventory data. Today, Swisscom can provision 800 new implementations per month in support of new and existing VPN customers and its previous provisioning time of 45 minutes for new VPN customers now takes 3 ½ minutes.

Best Inventory Management System-Cramer Systems
The best inventory management systems help providers eliminate resource redundancy, optimize the network and improve provisioning times. Today, more than 30 customers in Europe are employing Cramer Dimension, which include BT, BT Cellnet, Cable & Wireless, KPN, and KPN Mobile. The system supports both wireless and wireline operators and support everything from traditional voice to IP VPNs. Customers credit the system with cutting service provisioning time by up to 40 percent with an implementation time that can be as short as 3 months.

Best Network Management System-Riversoft
Interruptions in service can bring a business to its knees. Service providers rely on an effective network management system for proactive troubleshooting to prevent interruptions in service. Riversoft's third release of its Network Management Operating system has the ability to give users a view of the network environment at the customer level or even for each division of an organization. Customers include Carrier-1, Level 3 Communications, XO Communications, Jersey Telecom, Prodigy Communications, SEMA Group and ViaWest Internet Services.

OSS Systems Integrator of the Year-Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
An OSS platform is only as good as the integration of the individual systems. The Telecom Media Networks group of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young recently delivered a sophisticated OSS on time and within budget for a network services company specializing in high-capacity transport. The client has an 8,000 route-mile footprint, provides private line services ranging from DS-3 to OC-48 and 10 Gigabit optical transports. The team successfully provided project management, client infrastructure support, requirements assessments, design, end-to-end testing and customized training for the system owner.

Billing World and OSS Today editors selected the winners after holding a period of open nomination late last year. Nominations were evaluated by magazine editors and a panel of industry experts that include Sheridan Nye, Editor, OSSWatch, RHK Inc.; Peter Giglio, Vice President, Gerard Klauer Mattison (GKM); Rob Rich, Executive Vice President, The Yankee Group; Kornel Terplan, consultant and professor, Stevens Institute of Technology and Brooklyn Polytechnic University; and Edward J. Finegold, General Partner, Stylus Telecommunications LLC.
For more information on TeleStrategies awards and criteria, visit www.billingworld.com.

The nine categories and finalists include:

Best Order Management System

MetaSolv Software Inc.
Sigma Systems
Step 9 Software Corporation
Telution Inc.
Wisor

Customer Success Story

Compaq
Evidian
Granite Systems Inc.
Sentori
Sigma Systems

Best New OSS Product

Brix Networks
Digital Fairway
Trendium Inc.
Valaran Corporation
Visionael Corporation

Best Provisioning System

Alopa Networks Inc.
Astracon Inc.
Open Telecom
P-Cube Inc.
Syndesis

Best Overall OSS Product

Granite Systems Inc.
Quallaby Corporation
Sodalia
Syndesis
Trendium Inc.

Best Network Management System

Clear
Concord
Evidian
Quallaby Corporation
Riversoft

Best Inventory Management System

Cramer Systems Inc.
Granite Systems Inc.
NetCracker Technology
Visionael Corporation

Best New OSS Company

Brix Networks
Netcracker Technology
Synchronoss Technologies Inc.
Trendium Inc.
Valaran Corporation

OSS Systems Integrator of the Year

BusinessEdge Solutions
Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
GuideComm