Digital Fuel Partners with MetraTech to Integrate Service Level Management with Billing

BRISBANE, CA - April 5, 2001
Integrated billing and service management solution increases service provider profitability, automates SLA management, and speeds time-to-market.

Digital Fuel, the leading provider of service management solutions for IT outsourcers and corporate enterprises, and MetraTech, the web services billing solution provider, today announced a strategic partnership designed to accelerate profits, improve customer satisfaction, and scale operations for "next-generation" service providers (xSPs). The alliance brings together Digital Fuel's service level management platform with MetraTech's native XML billing platform.

The integrated platform empowers service providers to automatically track and audit Service Level Agreements (SLAs), hold their suppliers (i.e., network backbone and hosting providers) accountable for their performance, give customers web-based SLA compliance and billing reports, update SLAs when customers add new services, and update billing records in real-time when an SLA event occurs - such as a new service order.

The integration of Digital Fuel's ServiceFlow: Performance™ with MetraTech's billing solution eliminates a key obstacle to profitability for today's service providers - customers' fear that service providers cannot deliver on business critical service guarantees. Unlike other platforms that manage service level compliance only at the network level, the integrated solution enables service management and billing at both the application and network levels. Since most value-added services are offered at the application level, the unique application level approach enables xSPs to pursue higher value, higher margin offerings.

"Traditionally, service level management has focused on network reliability," said Scott Swartz, president and CEO, MetraTech. "While this is important, it's only part of the story. If you can't access your mission critical application, you don't care if the network connection to it is up and running. Dynamically linking Digital Fuel's market leading service management platform with MetraTech's billing solution enables service providers to monitor application level availability and performance - a significant competitive differentiation."

With a fully integrated system for automated service level management and billing, xSPs benefit from shorter time-to-market for new services, reduced operational costs associated with SLA management, and a better understanding of service usage and profitability. As a result, providers accelerate revenues, increase customer confidence, and minimize avoidable costs by simultaneously implementing service management and billing for multiple services.

"Flexible billing and pricing are critical for attaining profitability in the competitive service provider market," said Benny Lehmann, CEO and founder, Digital Fuel Technologies. "Enabling a two way flow of information between billing and service level management enables service providers to more rapidly implement new services, accurately price SLAs, and increase customer confidence. Together, MetraTech and Digital Fuel deliver a flexible, customizable solution that automates complex service level management and billing processes."

Digital Fuel's ServiceFlow: Performance™ and MetraTech's billing solution interoperate seamlessly and are available for joint customers, reducing implementation time and cost for service providers, and allowing them to focus on their core business.

About MetraTech

MetraTech accelerates profitability for ASPs and AIPs with the first web services billing solution. MetraTech's native XML platform enables business model agility, revenue development, partner management and revenue sharing, and usage-based pricing, while seamlessly integrating with existing business processes. Companies using the MetraTech billing solution include application service providers (ASP), application infrastructure providers (AIP), and enhanced communications service providers. With headquarters in Waltham, MA., MetraTech also has offices in London, UK. For additional information, visit www.metratech.com or call 781-839-8300.

About Digital Fuel

Digital Fuel is the leading provider of business service management (BSM) software solutions, helping service providers and enterprise service organizations manage the performance, financial, and regulatory aspects of IT, telecommunications, and business process services.  Digital Fuel has the largest deployments for SLA management and service cost management in the world, with thousands of concurrent users, SLAs, KPIs, metrics, cost formulas, and pricing rules.  With Digital Fuel's patented visual approach, our customers are deployed rapidly to quickly drive business value from automating the management of service offerings, agreements, service cost, and performance with their service customers and vendors.  ServiceFlow manages billions in business and IT services at companies and governments around the world such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Cummins, Capgemini, BT, IBM, SITA, Siemens Business Services, O2, Atos Origin, Telefonica, Transport of London, CSC and many others.  Digital Fuel is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices across North America and Europe.  Learn more at http://www.digitalfuel.com.