IBM and Nexaweb Provide Emerging Technology to Help Starwood Improve Customer Satisfaction At Sheraton HotelsTechnology Helps Keep "Sheraton Service Promise" - Ensuring Guests A Great Stay SOMERS, N.Y. & CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 12, 2002 -- IBM and Nexaweb Technologies today announced a joint solution from the two companies was selected by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) to make good on its "Sheraton Service Promise" - a commitment that ensures guests a great stay or the hotel will make it up with an instant discount, frequent guest points or even money back. The IBM/Nexaweb solution enables the Sheraton Hotel staff to quickly respond to guests needs via the Internet. Starwood Hotels & Resorts developed a customer response system as part of its overall customer service initiative called the Sheraton Service Promise. The application, called StarGuest(1) response system, is a technical innovation based on IBM infrastructure middleware and an emerging client infrastructure technology from Nexaweb, a member of the IBM Initiative For Emerging Technology Developers. About 200 targeted Sheraton hotels are using the response application - designed to enable key hotel personnel and maintenance staff to be responsive to customer needs, and to credit customers with rebates, gifts and free rooms if the hotel's responsiveness does not meet either the customer's expectations or the hotel's new high response standards. Here's how it works: When a guest registers a problem or complaint to the hotel staff, this information is entered into StarGuest response and immediately alerts a hotel employee to those tasks that are relevant to him or her. Once a task is completed, a hotel employee "closes" the task in the application. What used to take up to an hour or more to complete can now be resolved within minutes through this real-time system. "IBM is the vendor of choice for Starwood for open, Web-based e-business technology," said Tom Conophy, CTO, Starwood Hotels and Resorts. "When we designed the StarGuest response application, we needed the best solution to, not only work with our existing technology infrastructure, but allow us to lower our operational costs associated with the development and management of Web-based applications. We chose the combined IBM and Nexaweb solution in part because the solutions are based on open standards, which is critical to the ability to work across platforms and preserve our existing investment in technology infrastructure. Nexaweb has a high degree of responsiveness and performance while IBM WebSphere has the industrial-strength capability to manage heavy transaction loads and extend back-end business data and applications to the Web." The solution was built by Starwood Technology and Revenue Systems (STARS) using JSP and the Nexaweb Smart Client Platform(2) software for the presentation layer - Java (EJBs) for the business logic (EJB's) - running on the IBM WebSphere(3) Application Server. Nexaweb Smart Client software delivers a full client/server experience over the Web. Nexaweb runs seamlessly on top of WebSphere and from within the WebSphere development environment and does not require programmers to learn a new language or tool - Nexaweb utilizes the current J2EE development model (JSP/EJBs/XML). With IBM and Nexaweb technology, Starwood expects to lower the costs associated with the development and management of Web-based applications; deliver universally-accessible, client/server-quality applications using WebSphere; and move more applications to the WebSphere environment faster - even applications that could never before be considered for Web-enablement because of HTML limitations. "At IBM we are partnering with companies like Nexaweb to deliver leading-edge technology and innovative, new solutions to meet and exceed customer needs in multiple industries and markets," said Cynthia Erdman, Director of Strategy and Business Development, IBM. "Providing our technology to assist Starwood in achieving their 'Sheraton Service Promise' is important to IBM. Knowing the direct impact our technology has on improving a customer's hotel stay certainly helps us, and hopefully them, sleep better at night." "As part of the IBM Initiative For Emerging Technology Developers, Nexaweb received hands-on support at IBM's Waltham, Massachusetts Solution Partnership Center (SPC) to port the Nexaweb Server to the IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite," said Coach Wei, founder and CEO, Nexaweb. "The help that we received from the SPC was exceptional, enabling us to quickly port to all major platforms, including AIX, Linux and IBM eServer iSeries*** hardware. Working with IBM so closely has allowed us to align our product to meet the business-critical application needs of global 2000 companies, such as Starwood Hotels and Resorts." The joint IBM and Nexaweb solutions are a direct result of Nexaweb's participation in the IBM Initiative For Emerging Technology Developers - an elite group of companies selected and nurtured by IBM because of their innovative software solutions in new growth areas. As part of this program, IBM provides these companies with a special IBM team to capitalize on the array of developer-focused resources such as technical support and services. Benefits include use of the IBM Solution Partnership Centers (SPCs) worldwide; hands-on labs, workshops and other education; go-to-market assistance ranging from marketing plans to co-marketing activities; and financial support including low cost financing options and special prices on hardware and software. IBM supports members of the Initiative For Emerging Technology Developers through its successful PartnerWorld for Developers program. (1) Indicates a service mark of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (2) Indicates a trademark of Nexaweb Technologies, Inc. (3) Indicates a trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation About the IBM Initiative For Emerging Technology Developers IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM works with companies of all sizes around the world to deploy a full range of IBM technologies. For more information about the IBM Initiative For Emerging Technology Developers, visit www.ibm.com/partnerworld/developer/emerging. About PartnerWorld For Developers Software application developers receive support from IBM's PartnerWorld for Developers (PWD) - a worldwide program designed to help software developers reach broader markets, lower their costs of doing business, and take their products to market faster. Developers may contact IBM via PWD at http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld/developer or 1.800.627.8363 in North America (NA), 1.770.835.9902 outside North America. About Nexaweb Technologies, Inc. Nexaweb Technologies is the leader in providing standards-based client infrastructure software that delivers real-time business applications quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively across the spectrum of networks, desktops and client devices. The Nexaweb Smart Client Platform helps companies increase developer and user productivity and reduce application and infrastructure-related costs. The result: Greater value from existing investments in people, process and technology. For more information about Nexaweb Technologies and the Nexaweb Smart Client Platform visit www.nexaweb.com.
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CONTACT: IBM
Leigh Ann Fowler, 914/766-1109
lafowler@us.ibm.com
or
Nexaweb Technologies
Gloria Bates, 617/441-8055
gbates@nexaweb.com
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