CONTACT INFORMATION

SANTA ANA, CA., August 14, 2003— Open-c Solutions, a premier provider of billing and customer care solutions to the utility and energy industry, today announced Release 3.0 of the Open-cIS Customer Information System. This release of the Open-cIS product builds on Release 2.0 already in production at three North American clients serving over 650,000 customers.

“The advanced functionality and high quality of Release 3.0 provides Wisconsin Public Service with a solid foundation for implementing a best-in-class solution,” said Bob Sarosiek, CIS project manager for Wisconsin Public Service. “And given that we worked closely with Open-c Solutions in the design and testing for this release, we have a high degree of confidence in the delivered product.”

“Release 3.0’s increased functional breadth, usability, and configuration capability make it the most powerful CIS product in the market.” said David Kreuter, Open-cIS product director. “Our clients can tailor Open-cIS to their own best practices without modifying source code. This unique design avoids expensive code modifications and greatly lowers the total cost of ownership and the time required to initially implement Open-cIS.”

Specific key product enhancements include:

• “Process Log" functionality, which allows utilities to define and simplify workflows and processes for system tasks, field-oriented work, and scripting.
• “Public methods” that simplify interfacing third party systems with Open-cIS by making it easier to call APIs (Application Program Interfaces) and integrate Open-cIS with EAI (Enterprise Application Integration} tools, as well as non-Microsoft platforms.
• Interval billing and aggregation, including interval-by-interval editing, block interpolation, as well as standard and configurable algorithms for aggregation and validation.
• “Logic Extender” application that lets clients define how Open-cIS behaves and interacts with users.
• A data architecture that lets clients choose the information they store in Open-cIS with user-defined fields.
• “Campaign” application that lets clients select accounts and take actions en masse, such as mass mailings, generating outbound call requests, and service order generation.
• “Rate Builder” allowing clients to define what they sell, and then through a spreadsheet-like user interface, easily build and test rates for any product or service.
• Billing an unlimited number of items, or “accessories”, at a service point, such as street lights, cell phone towers, cable boxes, solid waste or recycling bins, etc.
• Billing for loans, leases, insurance, warranties, field work (such as labor, parts, and equipment).

About Open-c Solutions
Open-c Solutions, a subsidiary of NWP Services Corp. headquartered in Santa Ana, Calif., delivers systems and services to utilities and energy companies to enhance operating efficiencies and ensure long-term profitable customer relationships utilizing their state of the art Open-cIS platform. Additional information about Open-c Solutions is available at www.open-c.com.

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