Henley- on-Thames, UK 15th June 2005 – Portrait Software (formerly known as AIT Group), has launched the latest version of Portrait Foundation, its Application Platform Suite designed to help build intelligent, customer-facing applications rapidly;  Portrait Foundation is optimised for Customer-Critical Processes and is based on Microsoft .NET.

 

The first OEM customer for Portrait Foundation is Fiserv Inc., the leading provider of Information Management Solutions for the financial industry. Aperio, from Fiserv CBS Worldwide, is a leading front-office, retail banking system, powered by Portrait. Fiserv CBS have used Portrait to build Aperio, the next-generation sales and service platform for retail banks worldwide.

 

John Macaluso, CTO of Fiserv CBS Worldwide, said, “We chose Portrait Foundation as the development tool and run-time environment for our new Aperio application. We went through product training and delivered our first three Aperio product version releases ahead of schedule, and we have recently won our first major Aperio victory in the US. Fantastic results in a very short period of time.”

 

Aperio is one of a growing cluster of what Portrait Software calls Living Apps. These are process-centric, composite applications that can be built rapidly and integrate easily with legacy systems to drive a real-time, customer-centric enterprise.  Living Apps built with blue-chip partners are needed principally in the financial services, public services and contact centre markets, where business process flexibility and adaptability is crucial for competitive advantage. For example in the Public Sector, Portrait Software and our partners have delivered Portrait Response and Resolve, a contact-handling application for one of Europe’s largest Emergency Services organisations.

 
According to Mark Quirk, Head of Technology for Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Group, “Process Management, service-orientation and customer interaction are three hotspots in enterprise IT today – particularly within Financial Services and Public Services.  Our customers in these sectors are all looking to squeeze more from their IT systems with fewer resources. This has led to a generational shift in the way applications are developed, delivered and managed where speed to market and agility is key.  We’re excited that Portrait’s Application Platform suite together with .NET tools such as BizTalk Server and Sharepoint Portal Server can help our ISVs bring to market a new wave of process-centric business applications.”

 

Microsoft ISVs, systems integrators and business process outsourcers interested in working with Portrait Software in building intelligent, customer-centric applications can learn more at www.portraitsoftware.com.

 

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About Portrait Software

Portrait Software specialises in Customer Interaction software that helps build more responsive, more profitable customer relationships. Its flagship product, Portrait Foundation, is a specialised Application Platform Suite that helps enterprises deliver next-generation applications ideally suited to the new service-oriented architectures. Portrait Foundation gets process-driven, composite applications to market twice as fast as traditional development environments resulting in adaptable Living Apps that support the most important and complex processes: those that drive customer interactions and fulfil customer demands.  
 
Our 150 plus customers are organisations that lead the world’s most demanding customer-intensive sectors, including Financial Services, Public Services, Contact Centres and the Independent Software Vendors that support these markets.

Portrait Software's UK customers include Nationwide Building Society, The Woolwich, Lloyds TSB, Chelsea Building Society, Cheshire Building Society and the largest police force in Europe.  Mainland European customers include Komercni Banka (Czech Republic), SNT (Netherlands), Mapfre (Spain) and NovaKBM (Slovenia); and in the US customers include KeyCorp, Wells Fargo Bank, Rainier Pacific Bank and Fiserv CBS.

For more information please visit: www.portraitsoftware.com
 
About Fiserv CBS Worldwide
Fiserv CBS Worldwide is a unit of Fiserv, Inc. that delivers end-to-end business and technology solutions for retail financial and consumer finance institutions throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States.Through its offices in the USA, UK, Singapore, Australia, Poland, Colombia, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and China, Fiserv CBS Worldwide enables retail financial institutions to deliver integrated solutions for managing the entire customer lifecycle from core banking to multi-channel customer contact and data warehousing. Fiserv CBS Worldwide can be found on the Internet at www.fiservcbs.com.