Solution to Deliver Powerful, Integrated Direct and Indirect Lead and Opportunity Management System

SAN MATEO, Calif. - June 4, 2008 - BLUEROADS, a leading provider of Partner Opportunity Management (POM) solutions has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Microsoft Corp. to provide a seamlessly integrated opportunity and marketing management solution to companies who rely on sophisticated, multi-tier sales channels. The solution will enable enterprises and their channel partners to drive, track and manage referrals, leads and opportunities from first interaction to revenue and beyond across all sales touch points. The solution will also enable cross-channel sales teams to collaborate and more effectively team on opportunities. The expected results include increased revenue, improved sales forecast visibility and accuracy, enhanced tracking and measurement of marketing investments and lower total cost of ownership.

A Powerful Combination

"As a leader in partner management solutions, BLUEROADS plays a critical role in helping companies and their channel partners grow their revenues and improve sales predictability," said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "By combining the power of BLUEROADS with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM product, we will be able to offer one of the most advanced and comprehensive solutions for companies needing to manage both marketing and sales processes within, outside and across their entire organization."

The new integrated solution from Microsoft Dynamics CRM and BLUEROADS will enable customers to:

• Align each lead or opportunity with the best fit sales resource(s) across both direct and indirect channels. The "best fit" sales resource criteria can be based on a number of criteria, including historical success, account profile, pre-existing relationships, industry, expertise, and location. The result is accelerated sales cycles, increased conversion rates and reduced channel conflict.
• Effectively drive opportunities from first interaction to cash with contextual sales tips and sales cycle guidance. The combined solution will deliver sales tips right into the context of the lead or opportunity at the moment of the selling interaction. The sales tips can include discovery call questions, product information, competitive information or information on the campaign the lead was generated from. The guided selling gives alerts to both the vendor and partner about progress of the lead or opportunity which enables the vendor and partner sales teams to identify issues in the sales cycle for an opportunity and apply resources to move the opportunity along. The result is accelerated sales cycles and increased conversion rates.
• Establish a seamless, unified team focused on driving revenue by enabling direct and indirect sales reps to work on deals collaboratively as appropriate. Vendors and partners (or partners and other partners) can team up on the same opportunity, make opportunity updates, share documents and sales tips into the opportunity, provide deal guidance throughout the lifecycle, establish individual sales rep incentives, and jointly target and market to specific opportunities.
• Enhance opportunity tracking and measurement through a real-time, cross-channel view of total forecast down to the sales rep level that allows tracking of opportunity pipeline and marketing campaign performance across both direct and indirect teams.
• Increase lead performance by ensuring that the right lead gets to the right sales rep in real time. The combined solution will enable leads from any source including marketing campaigns, influencer referrals, web site, conferences and inside sales to be delivered to the sales rep with the highest likelihood of winning the deal. The solution also includes sales tips, guided selling and alerts to ensure that the leads move through the lead and opportunity pipeline and turn into cash at the highest possible rate. If a lead isn't acted on in a pre-defined manner at any stage of the lead to cash cycle, both vendor and partner are alerted for escalated action.
• Improve marketing campaign performance by ensuring that all leads are delivered into a closed-loop tracking and management solution. The combined solution will give unified visibility across all sales reps on lead conversion through the lead and opportunity funnel to clearly understand critical metrics such as which marketing investments have the highest performance and which reps are moving leads through each stage to cash most effectively.
• Surface more opportunities by leveraging your broad partner and influencer base through closed-loop lead referral. The combined solution will enable a broad partner and influencer base to refer a lead and be compensated for their participation or role in the ultimate opportunity. The solution enables compensation at any stage of the lead to opportunity cycle and any form of compensation, including currency, points, percentage, etc. The referring partner can also audit the progress of their referred lead all the way to payment or rejection. The lead is put into the standard lead pipeline and will be routed to the direct or indirect sales rep most likely to win the opportunity.
• Effectively use and improve processes by employing consolidated workflow rules and data structures that allow for flexible and powerful sales processes to be built across both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and BLUEROADS. Companies can optimize their incentive and compensation management policies to reward the right behaviors, as well as the Lead-to-Cash workflow process (including quote and order management).

"Forming a strategic partnership with Microsoft Corporation is the logical next step in our overall strategy to provide the most comprehensive channel management solution on the market," said Shinya Akamine, CEO at BLUEROADS. "Microsoft is undeniably one of the most recognized and influential companies in the world, and their Microsoft Dynamics CRM product is perfectly suited to complement BLUEROADS' partner opportunity management solution. We view our integrated solution as a way for customers to rapidly deploy channel industry best practices while taking advantage of the Microsoft technologies and Dynamics platform that they trust and rely on."

About BLUEROADS Corporation
BLUEROADS Corporation delivers proven enterprise Partner Opportunity Management solutions that help organizations with complex, multi-dimensional channels market and sell more effectively. Customers like Avaya, Polycom and Juniper depend on BLUEROADS' unique closed-loop system which empowers individual partner representatives to actively participate in sales and marketing processes. BLUEROADS strengthens the bond between vendors and their partners, achieving the mutually beneficial goals of increased conversion rates, revenue and market share. BLUEROADS is headquartered in San Mateo, California and is financed by ArrowPath Venture Capital, Cardinal Venture Capital, El Dorado Ventures and The Halo Fund. For more information, please visit www.blueroads.com.