RightNow Technologies (RNOW)

In March, RightNow (NASDAQ: RNOW) announced the RightNow Cloud Services Agreement (CSA), a client-focused approach to solution licensing that reinvents how cloud vendors engage with clients, finally delivering on the full promise of the cloud. CSA is gaining momentum and ringing true with customers, partners, and industry experts who agree that it’s time software companies change the way they do business and deliver on the benefits the SaaS revolution promised.

Clients Rave about Reinvention of Cloud Vendor-Client Engagements

RightNow CSA is resonating with customers and making it easier for them to do business with RightNow. In fact, during Q1’10, out of RightNow’s 14 customer deals over a million dollars, nine were on CSA. CSA provides relief from the protracted and complex negotiations that are standard operating procedure with traditional agreements, enabling RightNow and its clients to spend less time negotiating contracts and more time achieving faster results.

“The RightNow Cloud Services Agreement is making it easy to do business with them. Their progressive agreement helped reduce contract negotiation headaches and cycle times, giving us the benefits afforded through a longer term agreement while allowing us the flexibility to modify how our resources are applied as our business needs change over the next few years.”

Claudia Lowman, general manager of customer support at RealNetworks

“I am very pleased with the reaction we’ve seen to RightNow CSA. We’ve seen heads of procurement go speechless in meetings, and others forwarding the CSA to their teams to make sure they are aware of it for other vendor relationships. We are leading a change in the enterprise software industry.”

Greg Gianforte, chief executive officer and founder, RightNow

SaaS Leaders Embracing RightNow’s “Cloud Challenge”

RightNow also introduced the Cloud Challenge, a call to action to every cloud vendor to adopt similar principles in their client engagements. The Cloud Challenge and CSA have received an extremely positive response from partners and industry analysts:

“The RightNow Cloud Services Agreement is helping push the industry to truly deliver on the promises of the cloud and will accelerate adoption of SaaS. Their visionary approach to hassle free client engagement sets a precedent for all vendors to follow. We are planning to incorporate the CSA principles in our client engagements and meet RightNow’s Cloud Challenge.”

Richard Nucci, chief technology officer and co-founder, Boomi

“The RightNow Cloud Services Agreement exemplifies the accountability and transparency that vendors should be delivering to their clients. Traditional enterprise sales negotiations can no longer be the standard. Language Weaver was pleased to see RightNow take a stand with their Cloud Challenge, which we are proud to adopt and incorporate into our business practices. We fully support customer accountability and are very pleased to be working with RightNow in advancing this value into mainstream commercial commitments.”

Swamy Viswanathan, vice president of products, Language Weaver

“I really like the Cloud Service Agreement; it reverses many of the customer-unfriendly practices in the enterprise software market. Not only does this look like a good strategy for RightNow, but it also provides lessons for other companies and other industries.”

Bruce Temkin, “RightNow Revamps the Software Buying Experience,” Customer Experience Matters Blog

“RightNow’s flexible cloud contract is good news for SaaS buyers. Firms should ask their other SaaS vendors for similar terms and expect leading SaaS providers will follow RightNow’s lead.”

Liz Herbert, Forrester Research, Inc. The Forrester Blog for Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals Delivering on SaaS' Promise of Flexible Subscriptions, March 4, 2010

The RightNow Cloud Services Agreement

RightNow’s CSA delivers an innovative approach for licensing enterprise cloud software solutions. It provides the guaranteed-pricing benefits of a traditional Master Services Agreement (MSA) without the pain – hidden costs, escalating maintenance bills, lock-in, and shelfware. Also, unlike traditional MSAs, the RightNow CSA ensures that RightNow’s success is dependent on its clients’ success.

The RightNow Cloud Services Agreement includes:

• Annual Usage Alignment Up or Down – putting an end to shelfware, allowing clients to rebalance usage up or down annually to meet business needs.
• Three Year Price Commitment Plus Three Year Renewal Price Cap – provides clients with transparent and fixed pricing for six years, yet clients only have to commit for one year.
• Annual Termination for Convenience – provides clients with added flexibility and reduced risk; if RightNow isn’t executing to client satisfaction, the client can walk away.
• Annual Pools of Capacity – provides clients with an annual pool of usage over a 12-month period to accommodate fluctuations in their businesses without having to pay extra for spikes.
• Cash Service Level Credits – if RightNow falls short of the service levels guaranteed in a client’s customer care package, it will refund a percentage of the client’s subscription fees.
• Unlimited Capacity for 90-Day Pilots – clients are encouraged to try before they buy.

To learn more about the RightNow Cloud Services Agreement, visit www.rightnow.com/cloudchallenge.

Watch the March CSA announcement event at www.rightnow.com/march2010.

About RightNow

RightNow is helping rid the world of bad experiences one consumer interaction at a time, seven million times a day. RightNow CX, the customer experience suite, helps organizations deliver exceptional customer experiences across the web, social networks and contact centers, all delivered via the cloud. With more than eight billion customer interactions delivered, RightNow is the customer experience fabric for nearly 2000 organizations around the globe. To learn more about RightNow, go to www.rightnow.com.

RightNow is a registered trademark of RightNow Technologies, Inc. NASDAQ is a registered trademark of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

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