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Latitude and MetraTech Introduce "Meetingplace" Online Billing

Converged billing, Web and voice conferencing offering helps companies
streamline billing and reporting, slash conferencing service costs

Waltham, Mass. and Santa Clara, Calif., June 10, 2003— MetraTech, a leading provider of pricing, billing, and revenue sharing software, and Latitude Communications (Nasdaq: LATD), a leading provider of rich-media conferencing products and services, announced today the availability of MeetingPlace Online Billing. Based on the leading billing solution, MetraNet®, the new self-service system improves billing accuracy and reporting resulting in lower conferencing costs for enterprises.

Conferencing service providers often bill duplicate, hidden or erroneous charges. And according to Gartner, such inaccurate costs could comprise as much as 10 percent of total monthly charges. Enterprises can avoid these wrongful costs through the accurate billing and flexible reporting of MeetingPlace Online Billing, which enables users to:

  • Track billing and account information continuously for effective budgeting
  • View transaction charges within hours of service deliveryIdentify global usage by division, department and even user, for optimal control
  • Export billing information to Excel and other enterprise applications
  • View and sort billing data and produce reports via a standard Web browser

"Celerant Consulting is a global consulting firm, focused on operational strategy and implementation. Given that our people are most always working alongside our clients at client sites, the use of a conferencing tool that is 100 percent reliable, that is easy to use, and that also provides effective cost management through online billing is invaluable," said Malcolm Glyn, chief financial officer of Celerant Consulting, which uses MeetingPlace Online Billing.

The new solution's core technology, MetraNet, is the only billing platform that meets the complex requirements of enterprise conferencing. For optimal control, it captures participants' names and roles, features used, conference names, ports scheduled and actually used, times of entry and exit by user, minutes used both on the web and by voice, and port, transport and tax charges. The solution integrates with existing business applications and supports web and voice conferencing billing for license- and usage-based accounts. It also can support international languages, dates, number formats and currencies.

"Our business model has shifted from primarily product sales to service plans. So, we need a progressive solution to efficiently manage ongoing billing and reporting," said Rick McConnell, Latitude's chief executive officer. "MetraTech's technology allows us to offer enterprises optimal service by providing highly accurate billing and unique integrated web and voice conferencing reporting. As a result, we can quickly introduce new rich-media conferencing services while reducing the cost of generating invoices."

"Enterprises are increasingly looking for cost-effective web and voice conferencing," said Scott Swartz, president and chief executive officer, MetraTech. "Latitude's deep integration with Microsoft Outlook has provided customers with a seamless way to schedule conferences and the addition of MetraNet's billing and customer self-care capabilities provides a unique, comprehensive solution."

About Latitude Communications
Latitude Communications provides MeetingPlace, a leading secure, integrated rich- media conferencing solution. Companies such as Agilent, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Celerant Consulting and Lockheed Martin use the solution to work better and speed decisions through real-time collaboration. Available as an outsourced service or on-premises platform, MeetingPlace integrates with traditional and IP communications infrastructures enabling people to share and edit live documents from any location. The technology integrates with groupware such as Outlook to simplify scheduling, and directories such as Active Directory for added security and administrative control. Based in Santa Clara, California, Latitude has offices and distribution partners worldwide. Visit www.meetingplace.net or call 408-988-7200 (800-999-7440 in the U.S.).

About MetraTech
MetraTech Corp. is a leading provider of Web services-based pricing, billing, and revenue sharing software for established and emerging communications service providers. The MetraNet® XML-based billing platform easily integrates with existing infrastructure and third-party applications and enables customers to Turbocharge their IT assets to extend their capabilities and achieve a competitive advantage. With MetraNet, companies can dynamically offer new services as well as package their existing services in new ways through licensing or a fully outsourced solution. Only MetraTech provides pricing, revenue sharing and billing capabilities using XML and plug-and-play Web services. MetraTech is based in Waltham, Mass., with offices in Oxford, England. For more information, please visit www.metratech.com or call 781-839-8300.

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