Intergarph Corp’s Mountain View-based Quintus Systems Corp has come out with the first module in its WorkPro family of integrated portable applications, CustomerQ 2.0, a customer information package. The release thrusts Quintus onto the same stage as Aurum Software Inc, Scopus Technology Inc, ProActive Software Inc, Lysis Inc, Clarify Inc and a few other start-ups vying to make a mark in the field. Quintus has spent the last 18 months developing similar customised systems for a clutch of customers including Intel Corp, HaL Systems, Exxon Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co, which is setting up a worldwide internal help desk using Quintus software. CustomerQ 2.0 is its first attempt to create a shrink-wrapped package. Unlike competitors such as Aurum, which uses a proprietary language approach, and Clarify, which opted for C++, the Quintus technology is rule-based and object-oriented, and claims this makes its software more productive. CustomerQ integrates customer support, call tracking, help desk and product defect tracking in a single module that includes the Informix relational database.
More reasonably
It is priced more reasonably than some of its fellows, Quintus says, at from $25,000 (or $1,500 per user) for 16 users and running up to $100,000 (generally about $350 per user) for an unlimited number of users. Rivals like Clarify, it says, are over the top at $5,000 per user, while others force you to buy more than one module to achieve the same effect as you get with CustomerQ alone. Quintus is aiming its product at the software and other high technology industries, and at hardware and software managers at end-user organisations. Features include a graphical user interface, multiple query-by-example searching, solution matching, point-and-click ad hoc reporting, automatic notification and escalation, electronic mail and facsimile integration, and extensive data modelling. Quintus says the distinguishing mark of CustomerQ is the high degree of customisation it retains. The product is immediately available for Sparc systems with Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp and Intergraph systems set for first quarter. Links to Sybase, Ingres and Oracle are planned in future.
