CGI-AMS, the wholly-owned U.S. operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc. (TSX: GIB.SV.A; NYSE: GIB), today announced the release of Tapestry® 6.1, an upgrade of its modular rating, billing, and order management solution. Tapestry provides the answers to the issues facing today's telecom service providers, whether they be traditional providers or providers capitalizing on the rapidly converging market of telecom and IP services, with its full suite of convergent rating, billing, and order management solutions. These solutions help providers fend off intense competition and eroding profit margins by providing the agility and responsiveness necessary to be competitive with IP, content, and value-added services.
"Communications providers are aggressively introducing new 'quadruple play' services including voice, data, video, and content to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and drive market share. In many cases they are partnering with content providers to expand their suite of services," said Nazzic Turner, senior vice president of CGI-AMS. "Our enhanced Adjunct Rater offering enables providers to support these partnerships and move beyond standard rating and pricing functions without the prohibitive expense of replacing their entire legacy billing system."
Tapestry 6.1 builds on Tapestry's Adjunct Rater and Order Management offerings with significant feature enhancements:
- Real-time Rating - enables true real-time event rating and one-time charge prediction based on customer defined attributes and pricing elements.
- Micro-billing Support - enables charge calculation for partner revenue distribution by turning the Adjunct Rater into a calculation and distribution engine for usage and recurring charge revenue to content partners.
- Prepay Support - supports prepaid rating in addition to and in conjunction with traditional post paid rating and billing. Includes a hybrid pre & post-pay model which allows marketing and account managers to sell different services with different payment methods within the same product.
- Workflow Management - enhanced workflow management functionality provides additional flexibility in identification of possible trouble spots in workflows using both new graphical viewing capabilities and improved cancellation functionality to support rollback or back-out of workflows.
In addition to these features, Tapestry 6.1 also provides enhanced event error routing capabilities, additional automated task order management functions, Web Services support, and a port to AMD hardware.
"CGI-AMS continues to show leadership in the billing and OSS space with its ongoing investment in Tapestry," commented Paul Hughes, vice president of communications software strategies at the Yankee Group. "These latest feature/functionality sets are critical for any service provider looking to offer next generation content and commerce related services, and Tapestry is now properly aligned to support carriers in the development of their digital supply chain strategy."
Nazzic Turner concludes: "Tapestry Release 6.1 is essential in the continued evolution of IPCentricITy™, our strategic vision and action plan for the future of the communications industry. New offerings like Adjunct Rater prove CGI-AMS understands our clients' needs and is committed to setting the standard for solutions that address those needs."
About Tapestry
Tapestry is a state-of-the-art rating, billing, and order management solution suite to support convergent solutions and enterprise order management. Installed and proven in Europe and North America, Tapestry meets the evolving demands of a dynamic communications market. Tapestry has been IPDR certified since 2002. Tapestry is a registered trademark and is covered by the following U.S. patents: 6,456,986, 6,415,259, 6,240,422, 6,410,098, 6,463,439 and 6,415,298. For more information on Tapestry, please visit http://www.cgi.com/Tapestry.
About CGI-AMS
CGI-AMS is the wholly-owned U.S. operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc. Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent information technology and business process services firms in North America. CGI and its affiliated companies employ 25,000 professionals. CGI provides end-to-end IT and business process services to clients worldwide from offices in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific as well as from centers of excellence in India and Canada. CGI's annualized revenue run rate is currently US$3 billion and at June 30, 2005, CGI's order backlog was US$10 billion. CGI's shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.SV.A) and the NYSE (GIB) and are included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index as well as the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology and MidCap Indices. Website: www.cgi.com.
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For more information:
Business development
Keith Pigue, executive consultant, CGI-AMS
(205) 403-8426
Media relations
Kirsten Paragona, communications director, CGI-AMS
(978) 946-3124
