Ronco, inventors of the ``Veg-a-matic,'' Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and many other well-known products sold via television infomercials, selected EIC to help the company transition from a fully outsourced, 20-person office, to a self-sufficient corporation today employing over 200 people.

Nextcom, one of the three largest interconnects in Southern California, will implement EIC, initially deploying the product's softphone and remote client capabilities. Nextcom expects to add EIC's Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and predictive dialing features following the initial implementation.

``EIC will allow us to quickly handle the growing volume of orders, shipping requests, and re-orders coming in daily from repeat customers,'' said Ron Popeil, CEO of Ronco Inventions, LLC and Popeil Inventions, Inc., and inventor of both companies' products. ``Customers will also benefit from EIC's supervisory feature allowing us to monitor, in real time, all customer interactions.''

EIC is a unified communications solution that virtually eliminates the type of integration efforts associated with traditional computer telephony implementations. EIC allows organizations to manage customer interactions more efficiently by processing all media types -- including phone, fax, e- mail, and web interactions -- via a single server. EIC's latest enterprise offering, designed exclusively for businesses with between 50 and 1000 users, is offered as a feature-rich and flexible alternative to PBX solutions.

``EIC's unique 'all-in-one' platform will enable Ronco to achieve payback in less than one year,'' said Monty Ferdowsi, president of Nextcom. ``We've estimated that by implementing even just a few of EIC's features, Ronco could save as much as $360,000 in annual communications expenses.''

EIC will replace Ronco's Toshiba DK280 switch, purchased just two years ago. EIC was selected to replace the Toshiba switch over a Lucent solution, primarily because EIC offered incremental growth and an easy migration path to a more sophisticated system.

``Ronco's purchase of EIC emphasizes the many advantages that Interactive Intelligence's product offers over other interaction management products,'' said Dr. Donald E. Brown, president and CEO of Interactive Intelligence. ``As an open, software-based solution running on a unified platform, EIC reduces start-up costs, simplifies maintenance and administration, and increases flexibility. Using EIC's built-in graphical application generator, Ronco can easily and quickly adapt to changing customer needs by creating customized applications. New IVR options, web chat features, and many other communications applications can now be offered to Ronco customers, making them an even more popular vendor among their existing, and rapidly expanding customer base.''

About Ronco Inventions, LLC

Ronco Inventions, LLC and Popeil Inventions, Inc. are the inventors and manufacturers of the ``Veg-a-matic,'' Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, Popeil Pasta Maker, Ronco Food Dehydrator, and most recently the #1 selling product on television, ``Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ.'' Ronco sells its products via television infomercials, QVC, and high-end retail outlets such as Macy's, Bloomingdales, and Robinson May Co. The company can be reached at 818-775-4602 or http://www.ronco.com/ .

About Nextcom, Inc.

NextCom is a telecommunications company and integrator that provides a customer base of over 5000 businesses with phone systems, voice mail systems and voice network solutions. NextCom specializes in the consultation, design, integration, installation, and maintenance of digital Key/Hybrid/PBX telephone systems, NT-based communication servers, IP-based communication servers, Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone systems, and unified messaging solutions. The company offers a 'Total Telecommunications Solution,' giving customers a one-stop shopping experience. Founded in 1969, Nextcom (formerly Phone Masters) is headquartered in Southern California and serves the Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego counties. In the highly fragmented Interconnect industry, Nextcom has established itself as one of the three largest interconnects in Southern California. The company's infrastructure, built for reliability and expandability, makes Nextcom well positioned for future growth. NextCom can be reached at 310-360-1000 or http://www.nextcom.net/ .

About Interactive Intelligence, Inc.

With over 400 installed customer sites to date, Interactive Intelligence® (Nasdaq: ININ - news) is a leading developer of interaction management software that allows call centers, e-businesses, enterprises, and service providers to automate virtually every aspect of their business communications. The company's flagship product, Enterprise Interaction Center® (EIC), is an ``all-in-one'' Windows NT-based communications software solution. Add-on products to EIC include Interaction Web(TM) (Web chat/collaboration, Web callback, and Voice Over Net calls), Interaction Recorder(TM) (voice logging), Interaction Director(TM) (network-based pre- and post-call routing), and Interaction Dialer(TM) (predictive dialing). Interactive Intelligence also offers EIC for Service Providers designed to support large-scale subscriber services including unified messaging, one- number ``follow me,'' call screening, conferencing, and international call back. In addition, the company offers a standalone product called e-FAQ(TM), an e- mail response management solution for organizations of all sizes. Interactive Intelligence is headquartered in Indianapolis with offices in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Denver, Atlanta, Boca Raton, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, San Francisco, Tokyo, Seoul, Australia, Aix-en-Provence (France), Surrey (U.K.), and Waspik (Netherlands). The company can be reached at 317-872-3000 or http://www.inin.com/ .

This release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, are the following: rapid technological changes in the industry, volatility in the market price of the company's common stock; the company's ability to achieve profitability, to manage successfully its growth and increasingly complex third party relationships, to maintain successful relationships with its current and any new resellers, to maintain and improve its current products and to develop new products and to protect its proprietary rights adequately; and other factors described in the company's SEC filings, including the company's Registration Statement on Form S-1, as amended (Registration No. 333-79509), effective September 22, 1999, and its quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 10, 1999.

Interactive Intelligence, Enterprise Interaction Center, Interaction Web, Interaction Recorder, Interaction Director, Interaction Dialer, and e-FAQ are servicemarks or trademarks of Interactive Intelligence, Inc. All other products and company names should be considered servicemarks or trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE: Interactive Intelligence, Inc.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000328/in_int_int_1.html