, November 7, 2005 - DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 7, 2005--Sphera Corporation, a leading provider of data center automation, provisioning, management and virtualization technologies, announced today the launch of a new state-of-the-art platform that enables BellSouth (NYSE:BLS) to deliver enhanced Web hosting and hosted applications capabilities.
In less than one month, Sphera and BellSouth successfully migrated more than 100,000 Web sites, e-mail, ftp and e-commerce accounts to the new Sphera/BellSouth platform.
Sphera's latest platform affords BellSouth the ability to control its product portfolio, expand customization capabilities, and achieve better economies of scale while simultaneously increasing average revenue per user (ARPU). In addition to traditional hosting services, the Sphera platform enables BellSouth to offer residential and business customers hosted applications, including, among others, e-commerce, premium e-mail, CRM and collaboration.
"BellSouth's small and medium business customers have expressed an ongoing need for Web hosting with advanced e-mail and commerce capabilities," said Tim Hill, director of portal services -- BellSouth. "By bringing the Web hosting platform in-house with Sphera, we can meet these increasing customer needs as they evolve."
"Sphera is extremely pleased with our partnership with BellSouth," said Michael Gold, chief executive officer -- Sphera. "The infrastructure we have developed supports millions of customers and delivers virtually any Web-based and business application as part of an enhanced Web hosting service. We believe this solution has strengthened BellSouth's leadership position within the telecommunications industry, and look forward to expanding our pioneering technologies together."
Since migrating to the Sphera platform, BellSouth offers a significantly enhanced product suite with unparalleled growth opportunities for small to medium businesses. The open, standards-based platform created by BellSouth and Sphera has significantly reduced costs and customer churn, while improving margins.
"As we look to aggressively and effectively market our enhanced capabilities, such as Linux hosting and e-commerce, to millions of BellSouth customers, our investment in the Sphera platform will continue to present a significant return," continued Hill. "In partnership with Sphera, BellSouth has built a world-class infrastructure for hosting Web sites with advanced e-mail and e-commerce application capabilities, which can easily expand as we deploy new applications and services to our growing customer base."
About Sphera Corp.
Denver-based Sphera Corp., with offices in Tel Aviv and Tokyo, is a privately held, venture capital-backed software company. Sphera's solutions encompass a range of hosted applications and services for Linux and Windows including Microsoft's full collaboration suite (e.g. Exchange, SharePoint, Live Communications Server, Windows Media Server, etc.). Leading service providers worldwide utilize Sphera's standards-based platform to manage their web hosting and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses. Its telecommunications and service provider customers deliver the highest SLAs and best performance in the industry by deploying redundant, scalable implementations and by leveraging Sphera's patented Quality of Service (QoS), Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS(TM)) and other technologies.
To date, Sphera has raised approximately $50 million from leading venture capital firms including JVP, TLcom Capital Partners, Bank of America Equity Partners and Vision Capital.
Please visit www.sphera.com for additional information.
About BellSouth Corporation
BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth has joint control and 40 percent ownership of Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless voice and data provider with 52.3 million customers.
Backed by award-winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(R), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial-up and high-speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(R) and The Real Yellow Pages(R).
BellSouth believes that diversity and fostering an inclusive environment are critical in maintaining a competitive advantage in today's global marketplace. More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com.
