Release of Astea Alliance 10.0, the Most Comprehensive Release Enabling the Virtual and Connected Enterprise

HORSHAM, Pa., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Astea International Inc. (Nasdaq: ATEA), a global provider of service lifecycle management and mobility solutions, has introduced a new version of the industry's most robust solution for service organizations. With this latest release, Astea is introducing many new features and modules, including: an innovative user interface; a suite of workforce collaboration tools; a redesigned Studio development tool; Third Party and Vendor Management module; and support for ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library).

From the initial customer call to the closing of work orders, customer invoicing and product replacement, every step in the service lifecycle process represents an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs and increasing revenues. In order to deliver world class service, organizations need seamless continuity and visibility of every interaction with the customer. Critical customer information must be shared and instantly available to everyone in the organization that touches that customer. With Astea Alliance 10.0, companies can manage the entire service lifecycle with a single provider -- Astea.

Below are just a fraction of the benefits that organizations can realize from leveraging the latest functionality in Astea Alliance 10.0:

• Improved Productivity & Collaboration -- Leveraging Web 2.0 functionality, Astea Alliance helps companies connect and work collaboratively with partners, vendors, suppliers, customers and employees. With the new enterprise collaboration tools, vendor and third party management, dashboards, and embedded analytics, this release promotes the easy exchange of ideas and information throughout the service lifecycle ecosystem.
• Ease of Use and Personalized User Experience -- Redesigned and fresh user interface provides for sleek, simplistic and personalized navigation. Combining the user experience of the internet and office tools, this new user interface becomes the end user's personal landing page. This rich and innovative user interface leverages Microsoft®'s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). The interface supports tab management functionality, smart menus and a home page that can be personalized to meet an individual's unique needs to view the most relevant and up to date information in a single location.
• Easily Manage and Support a Company's Entire Service Ecosystem -- This new release also introduces the new Astea Alliance Third Party and Vendor Management module. This secure facility provides the ability for third party vendors and subcontractors to access the system and enables them to participate in the process of service delivery. By having the ability to manage and view both internal and external service technicians, with a single platform and dispatch console, companies can easily choose the best technician for every job while ensuring a consistent level of service. This new module seamlessly connects the service provider with partners and third party technicians eliminating duplicate data entry, easily communicating work order information and status updates, parts ordering and tracking, as well as accelerating invoice and payment once work is completed.
• Lower Total Cost of Ownership -- Astea Alliance 10.0 introduces a new and flexible development environment, leveraging Microsoft® Visual Studio 2008. This new development environment makes it easy to build customizations and carry forward those customizations when upgrading to future releases of Astea Alliance. Astea has developed extensions, often referred to as "plug-ins", to the Visual Studio 2008 environment that speed development. Organizations can use Alliance Studio's powerful tools to define and update business rules, screens, menus, defaults, alerts and more. Users can add new functionality with user-defined fields or build entirely new screens.
• Enable and Support Continuous Process Improvement -- Astea Alliance introduces support for the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework. ITIL provides a framework of best practice approaches which are intended to facilitate the delivery of high quality IT services. The enhancements in Astea Alliance 10.0 focus on what are seen as the core processes of ITIL: Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, and Service Level Management, which form the basis of the day-to-day operations of a Call Center. With ITIL best practices built into the Astea Alliance application, organizations can further improve response time, minimize disruption, and ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used in order to minimize impact and to improve day-to-day operations.

"Building on our extensive history and expertise in the service management industry, this release is by far the most comprehensive release Astea has ever introduced. This release focuses on enabling and easily facilitating service organizations to confidently and effectively create, support and manage a truly virtual service delivery network for both financial and operational efficiencies. With workforce collaboration, analytics, third party and vendor management, ITIL support and much more, organizations can feel confident that they are implementing best practices and delivering a consistent level of service around the globe, greatly improving customer satisfaction," said Zack Bergreen, CEO of Astea International.

Astea is the only solution provider that offers all cornerstones of service lifecycle management: customer management; service management; asset management; forward and reverse logistics management; and mobile workforce management with enhanced scheduling optimization. Astea's solutions are seamlessly orchestrated to share and leverage information throughout the service lifecycle -- removing the traditional barriers between the field and back office. With Astea Alliance's modularity, companies can introduce one module at a time or deploy a seamless information backbone across the entire service lifecycle continuum, thereby eliminating the patchwork of disparate systems that can hamper a company's ability to provide best-in-class service due to the "siloing" of customer information.

Astea works with hundreds of companies worldwide, maximizing the value of an organization's service operation by optimizing critical business processes across the globe. The company can be reached at 215-682-2500.

About Astea International

Astea International (Nasdaq: ATEA) is a global provider of software solutions that offer all the cornerstones of service lifecycle management, including customer management, service management, asset management, forward and reverse logistics management and mobile workforce management. Astea's solutions link processes, people, parts, and data to empower companies and provide the agility they need to achieve sustainable value in less time, and successfully compete in a global economy. Since 1979, Astea has been helping more than 400 companies drive even higher levels of customer satisfaction with faster response times and proactive communication, creating a seamless, consistent and highly personalized experience at every customer relationship touch point.

www.astea.com. Service Smart. Enterprise Proven.

© 2010 Astea International Inc. Astea and Astea Alliance are trademarks of Astea International Inc. All other company and product names contained herein are trademarks of the respective holders.

SOURCE Astea International Inc.