Remark!® Voice Sever Gains New Telephony Interfaces

Avaya IP Office and NEC MCI Interfaces provide better integration options for Remark! customers

San Diego, CA, December 3, 2004 -- Big Sky Technologies Inc. continues to add value to the Remark! Voice and Telephony product line by adding two new telephony integration options to the Remark! Voice Server. These new options provide tighter integration with popular telephone systems giving customers more choices when deploying Remark! products. Big Sky's Remark! products include Remark! Unified MessagingAssistant for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino and the Remark! Voice Server which supports a wide range of Workgroup Interactive Voice Response (WIVR) applications such as customer support help desks, sales and marketing hotlines, human resource benefit enrollment and time and attendance reporting systems.

The IP Office product line from Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV) provides a blend of traditional PBX features with new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) features allowing customers to migrate toward VoIP solutions at their own pace. The modular design of IP Office makes it easy to install and configure making it an ideal choice for small to medium sized enterprises upgrading from traditional PBX solutions. As with many new features added to Remark!, existing customers drove the requirement for a direct integration with IP Office. When Synectics Inc. from Chicago, a long time Remark! customer, began evaluating new PBX options, they were impressed with the capabilities provided by IP Office, but they were not willing to part with their Remark! Unified Messaging solution. Big Sky researched the interfaces available with IP Office and developed a direct VoIP integration that supports all of the features required for Unified Messaging including receipt of called and calling party information, managed call transfer and message waiting indicator support.

Anthony Ruggeri, Director of Technical Services at Synectics Inc. worked with Big Sky to integrate and test the resulting solution. "By providing direct integration with IP Office, Big Sky has allowed us to take advantage of the many new features in IP Office and continue to enjoy the benefits of true Unified Messaging within our Lotus Notes infrastructure."

"Avaya's IP Office platform provides an attractive option for small and medium sized companies, and providing direct integration with IP Office will generate additional opportunities for the Remark! product line." said Bill Doll Jr, Product Manager for Remark! Products at Big Sky. "Providing VoIP integration eliminates the need for proprietary voice boards, making it easier and less expensive for companies to deploy Remark! Unified Messaging and IVR solutions.

Big Sky has enhanced integration with most NEC PBX systems by supporting the NEC MCI integration protocol. The MCI protocol provides Remark! with call information and allows Remark! to set and clear Message Waiting Indicators on each user's telephone.

Creative Business Solutions, a Big Sky and IBM Business Partner located in Minneapolis, contacted Big Sky when one of their customers needed a new voice messaging solution compatible with Lotus Notes. Their customer was also upgrading their existing PBX to the new NEC NEAX® 2000 IPS. Big Sky was able to add support for the NEC MCI data link to accurately decode call information from the PBX. Working with Big Sky, Creative Business Solutions verified the integration and demonstrated a working solution to their customer within a short timeframe.

"Working as a team, Creative Business Solutions and Big Sky were able to meet the needs of our customer by providing a world class Unified Messaging solution tightly integrated with the telephone system of their choice." said Al Fishel of Creative Business Solutions. "We are in business to meet our customers needs and solutions like Remark! help us accomplish that goal."

These new integration options join a list of other integrations including Cisco Call Manager, H.323, Intel Dialogic and NMS Communications voice boards supporting analog, Digitial T1/PRI and Digital proprietary PBX phone lines. In addition, Remark! supports SMDI and ITT3100 serial integration options compatible with a wide range of legacy PBX systems. The addition of these new telephony integration options underscores Big Sky commitment to providing the best voice and telephony solutions to their customers.

About Big Sky Technologies
Big Sky is a leading supplier of application software that enhances communications across the business enterprise or within specialized workgroups. Big Sky focuses on application solutions that utilize the corporate data network, public telephone network, and Internet to provide anytime, anywhere access to centralized information. Big Sky provides self-service solutions for unified messaging, human resource, customer support, and facility management. For more information, please visit http://www.bigskytech.com.

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Remark! is a registered trademark of Big Sky Technologies, Inc. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.