Echelon and Convergys Partner to Define Smart Grid Customer Experience, Drive Customer Adoption July 13, 2010 10:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time   CINCINNATI & SAN JOSE, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) and Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in relationship management, today announced a collaboration to develop integrated Smart Grid solutions based on Convergys’ highly scalable real time Smart CIS Solution and Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) System, a leading advanced metering infrastructure solution. The software will be used to support next generation utility billing and customer energy management applications. Convergys and Echelon are joining to provide an integrated metering, rating, billing, and customer care system that enables customers to easily harvest data from the Echelon NES platform and pass that data in real time to the Convergys Smart CIS Solution creating an ecosystem that turns data into real-time actionable intelligence, through which utilities can improve customer control and interaction. By joining Convergys’ real-time, smart grid billing and customer care solution (CIS) with Echelon’s NES System, the partners plan to evolve standard "meter-to-cash" solutions to a “customer-to-cash” solution, enabling utilities to proactively apply the data generated from billions of meter reads per month to customer interactions to drive an improved customer experience and strong customer adoption. “Convergys is dedicated to helping our clients make smarter decisions, enhance their relationships with their customers, and improve their business performance,” said Bob Lento, President, Information Management, Convergys. “We believe that by collaborating with Echelon through its NES System, we can help improve the relationship between utilities and their customers by providing real-time energy usage information and a more integrated customer experience.”  “Today, utilities and customers are unable to fully leverage the real-time, two-way digital capabilities enabled by the smart grid,” said Michael Anderson, Echelon’s senior vice president of NES sales and market development. “With this seamless customer-to-cash solution built for real time interaction, customers will have more control over their energy usage, enabling them to save money and be more environmentally conscious.”  The NES advanced metering infrastructure consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a Web services-based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. Much more than a simple AMI system focused on billing related services, the NES System provides utilities with a wealth of information about the status, operation, and health of the grid that helps them to reduce operating costs while increasing service quality. For more information regarding Echelon’s NES System, visit www.echelon.com/nes. Convergys Corporation provides innovative next generation billing and customer care solutions to support the rapid advancement of smart grid technology. Combined with over 30 years of experience and expertise in helping multi- national corporations through transformative network changes, Convergys Smart CIS Solutions help minimize risk while delivering market-leading innovation. About Echelon Corporation Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into a smart, communicating energy network, connecting utilities to their customers, enabling networking of everyday devices, and providing customers with energy aware homes and businesses that react to conditions on the grid. Echelon's NES System – the backbone for the smart grid – is used by utilities to replace existing stand-alone electricity meters with a network infrastructure that is open, inexpensive, reliable, and proven. The NES System helps utilities compete more effectively, reduce operating costs, provide expanded services, and help energy users manage and reduce overall energy use. Echelon's LonWorks® Infrastructure products extend the smart grid, powering tens of millions of energy aware, everyday devices made by thousands of companies – connecting them to each other, to the electricity grid and to the Internet. LonWorks based products work together to monitor and save energy; lower costs; improve productivity; and enhance service, quality, safety, and convenience in utility, municipal, building, industrial, transportation, and home area networks. More information about Echelon can be found at http://www.echelon.com. About Convergys Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG) is a global leader in relationship management. We provide solutions that drive more value from the relationships our clients have with their customers. Convergys turns these everyday interactions into a source of profit and strategic advantage for our clients. For more than 30 years, our unique combination of domain expertise, operational excellence, and innovative technologies has delivered process improvement and actionable business insight to marquee clients all over the world. Convergys has approximately 70,000 employees in 74 customer contact centers and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and our global headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit www.convergys.com (Echelon, LonWorks, and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Convergys and the Convergys logo are registered trademarks of Convergys Corporation.) Supporting Resources: Brochure: CIS Solutions for the 21st century utility Executive Briefing: An Intelligent Approach to Smart Grids Point of View: Preparing for Smart Grid’s Impact Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and YouTube Receive our news releases by EMAIL or http://url4t.com/car Related News: Convergys Lights-up Smart Grid with Smart Solutions Leading Utility Selects Convergys to Support Smart Grid Initiative with Precedent-setting Smart Customer Information System Convergys Contacts: Business & Financial Media - John Pratt, +1 513 723 3333 or john.pratt@convergys.com Trade & Social Media - Jeff Hazel, +1 513 723 7153 or jeff.hazel@convergys.com Echelon Contacts: Julia O’Shaughnessy, Echelon Corporation, +1 408 938 5357 or julia@echelon.com Contacts Convergys Contacts: Business & Financial Media - John Pratt, +1 513 723 3333 or john.pratt@convergys.com Trade & Social Media - Jeff Hazel, +1 513 723 7153 or jeff.hazel@convergys.com Echelon Contacts: Julia O’Shaughnessy, Echelon Corporation, +1 408 938 5357 or julia@echelon.com Permalink: http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20100713006343/en