EXHIBIT 99.1
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CONTACTS:
AT ASTEA MEDIA RELATIONS INVESTOR RELATIONS
Jack Phillips Steven Greene Harvey A. Goralnick
Chief Financial Officer Sperling Greene Associates FOCUS Partners LLC
Astea International Inc. (212) 366-5060 (212) 752-9445
(215) 682-2500 sgreene@sperlinggreene.com info@focuspartners.com
jphillips@astea.com
ASTEA COMPLETES SALE OF ITS ABALON SUBSIDIARY
HORSHAM, PA. January 4, 1999 - Astea International (Nasdaq: ATEA), a leading
developer and supplier of Customer Management Solutions (CMS) software, today
announced that it has sold its Abalon subsidiary to Industri-Matematic
International Corp. (Nasdaq: IMIC) for $9.5 million in cash.
Jake LaMotta, President and COO of Astea, noted, "The sale of Abalon represents
the final organizational step necessary to re-focus Astea on its core
competencies: the development of leading-edge, mission critical Customer
relationship management solutions. Customer-focused service applications
represent the historic strength and expertise of Astea as well as its strongest
market position. The Abalon divestiture allows this management team to sharply
focus development and marketing efforts on Astea's flagship service-related CMS
product suites. The divestiture proceeds, from Bendata and now Abalon, make it
possible for us to aggressively emphasize sales and marketing efforts that will
take advantage of dramatically increasing product licensing opportunities in
this market space."
According to Zack Bergreen, Chairman and CEO of Astea International, "The sale
of Abalon improves our management team's market focus, helps to simplify our
organization and culture, and funds continued expansion of both product
development and sales and marketing efforts designed to maximize our impact and
success worldwide."
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Astea also announced today the appointment of John Jacobs as Vice President of
Software Development as of December 7, 1998. "John's appointment demonstrates
the Company's commitment to strengthen its software development pipeline"
commented Mr. LaMotta. Mr. Jacobs brings over 23 years of engineering,
development, and operational skills with him to Astea, including 15 years
experience in all aspects of the product development life cycle with Shared
Medical Systems (SMS) of Malvern, Pa. In his most recent role, as Group Manager
for one of SMS's new strategic clinical information systems, he was directly
responsible for spearheading the development of an enterprise-wide, three tier,
Microsoft-centric product.
ABOUT ASTEA INTERNATIONAL
Astea International develops Customer Management Software that enables
organizations to automate their field service and customer support operations.
Astea's products include ServiceAlliance, an integrated, client/server customer-
service automation application that can be easily configured and rapidly
deployed, DISPATCH-1, the industry's leading and most complete field service
application, and V-Service, a unique, 100% web-based field service application.
Astea markets its products through direct and indirect sales and services
networks throughout North America, Europe, Israel, Asia, Australia and New
Zealand.
The Company's customer base includes such industry leaders as StorageTek, Groupe
Bull, NCR, GTE Customer Networks, Phillips Medical Systems, Siemens Business
Communications Systems, Johnson Controls, Sprint, and Pomeroy Computer
Resources. Astea's products embody 20 years of industry-leading experience and
knowledge-building tightly integrated, end-to-end solutions for service-based
organizations of different sizes and needs. Astea can be reached at (800) 724-
2891 or via the World Wide Web at www.astea.com.
DISPATCH-1 and ServiceAlliance are trademarks of Astea International, Inc. All
other company and product names mentioned herein are trademarks of their
respective holders.This press release contains forward-looking statements that
are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995 and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could
materially affect future results. Among these risk factors are the continuing
acceptance of Astea's products, general competitive pressures in the
marketplace, and the continued overall growth in the customer management
solutions market industry. Further information regarding these as well as other
key risk factors and meaningful cautionary statements that could affect the
Company's financial results are included at length in the Company's Form 10-K
for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1997, filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.