Alliance Is First to Provide Internet-Based Wireless Solutions for Service Communities
PALM SPRINGS, CA - June 5, 2000 - ViryaNet, a leading provider of business-to-business Internet solutions for service communities, today announced at the Symbol Technologies User Conference that it has partnered with Symbol (NYSE: SBL), a global leader in mobile data management systems. Together, the companies will offer an Internet-based, wireless solution that allows field service engineers (FSEs) to improve the quality of service that they deliver, increase customer satisfaction, and decrease costs. This distinctive partnership will enable both companies to jointly shape the field service engineer market through their combined sales, marketing, and development efforts.
"It made sense to marry ViryaNet's Service Hub software, processes, and domain expertise with our hardware," said Mike Fusco, vice president, services at Symbol Technologies. "The resulting product, Mobile FE, will enable mobile users, such as FSEs, to respond and interact more quickly and efficiently with other members of the service community. Mobile FE will provide field engineers with the timely, accurate information they need to accept calls, resolve customer issues, order parts, and report the details of the call. The end result is higher customer satisfaction, more accurate billing, and better overall productivity."
Mobile FE could scale to meet the needs of large national or international companies, as well as mid-sized or smaller organizations in an ASP-hosted environment. Mobile FE customers will have the ability to tailor the look of the Service Hub portal; modify the FE's business processes, reports, or links; as well as allow for the development of specific application program interfaces (APIs) to existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) applications. Mobile FE business processes are an integral part of the whole ViryaNet Service Hub business-to-business solution. Activity reported as part of the Mobile FE business process will be visible to the service community members who handle contract management, the service supply chain, depot repair processes, and service intelligence and reporting.
"The market is huge! Symbol and ViryaNet have recognized the market opportunity for servicing more than 12 million FSEs," said Glenn Martin, vice president of ASP and the wireless business unit at ViryaNet. "Mobile FE will give users access to the data and applications they require to be productive, regardless of their location, and will make their information available to other members of the service community. Symbol's embedded scanner simplifies the process of capturing data for FSEs. Increased FSE productivity results in higher quality customer service, which is critical to the success of enterprises in such competitive times."
About Symbol Technologies, Inc.
Symbol Technologies, Inc., winner of this year's National Medal of Technology, is a global leader in wireless and Internet-based mobile data transaction systems and services. Symbol provides its customers unique value with innovative solutions utilizing application-specific information appliances, data and voice wireless networks, and bar code and data capture scanning. Symbol and its global network of business partners provide LAN and WAN mobility solutions from the enterprise to e-commerce for industries including retail, transportation and distribution logistics, manufacturing, parcel and postal delivery, healthcare, education, and hospitality. Symbol's broad range of information appliances is in use by business and consumers from the factory, to the office, to the home. Information is available from Symbol at www.symbol.com and 1-800-722-6234.
About ViryaNet
ViryaNet is a leading provider of business-to-business Internet solutions for service communities.
ViryaNet's Service Hub solution allows an organization's entire service community, including its employees, as well as its customers, partners, vendors, and suppliers, to work and collaborate on the Web. Service Hub consists of out-of-the box applications for workforce management, supporting mobile field engineers who use wireless PDAs and cell phones. Service Hub supports a variety of business processes in the areas of contracts, supply chain, and repair, including managing service level agreements, enabling customer self service, automating repair returns, and providing auction-based asset procurement and replenishment.
ViryaNet's Service Hub solution enables organizations to utilize the advanced capabilities of the Internet to create highly efficient service communities, while leveraging existing applications, legacy operations, and technology.
ViryaNet's veteran professional services team and implementation partners enable rapid implementation of the Company's solutions for world-class corporations such as CapRock, Data General/EMC, ITC^DeltaCom, Inc., Nortel Networks, Sun Microsystems, Symbol Technologies, and Teraoka Seiko.
For additional information about ViryaNet and its solutions, visit the Company's website at www.viryanet.com.