Aria Systems Celebrates Fifth Anniversary with Record Third Quarter; New Customers and Partners
Philadelphia, Pa., October 6, 2008 — Aria Systems Inc., the industry standard and leading provider of on-demand billing and customer lifecycle management solutions, celebrated its fifth anniversary with a watershed of news on its sales and partner fronts, reflecting the company's unprecedented growth and momentum in its market leading role in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) billing space.
Equipped with the unique understanding and perspective that comes with being the first and most experienced SaaS billing provider, Aria Systems had acknowledged earlier this year that the market had reached a tipping point of wide-scale enterprise acceptance and universal acceleration. Now, Aria Systems sees its stellar third quarter results in client and sales growth metrics as a testimonial to the increasingly compelling nature of the SaaS model in the face of the current challenging economic environment.
Aria Systems' five year anniversary celebration comes on the heels of a very strong third quarter, with results that include:
- Aria Systems reported a third quarter sales bookings growth rate that doubled the second quarter and quadrupled the first quarter. Traditional enterprises, as well as entertainment and gaming companies, repeatedly chose Aria Systems over less proven new entrant alternatives.
- Aria Systems now counts more than sixty customers over the last five years.
- Well in excess of three million transactions were processed in the third quarter 2008, more than three times the level during the same period 2007. For the first three quarters of 2008, transaction volumes were more than four times those of the same period in 2007.
- Meeting growing market demand for integrated, comprehensive SaaS offerings, Aria's third quarter was marked by the signing of several key partners including Clareity, BSG and BigWorld, and an expanded partnership with Rackspace. Aria is committed to working with partners and will make partner acquisition a top-line strategic initiative in 2009.
- Exemplifying Aria's focus on continuing to improve the quality of the overall customer experience, investments in account management and customer service teams paid dividends as customer implementation time was decreased by 25% during the quarter. The improvement was due in large part to Aria's flexible API-friendly approach that allows users to program to a pre-constructed interface, in some cases "self-implement," instead of individually programming a device or piece of software.
- CRM magazine acknowledged Aria Systems' CRM solution excellence by the honoring the company with its 2008 "Rising Star" CRM Market Award. The CRM Market Awards honors the vendors, consultants, and end-user companies focused on creating and cultivating rewarding customer experiences and relationships through the "sophisticated integration of people, processes, and technologies."
- Looking to the quarter ahead, Aria Systems is rolling out a beta test of its Aria A+ Billing Platform. This is the first SaaS-based billing platform to offer tiers of enterprise-class features within a PCI-compliant environment. Features include: a centralized self service toolset; flexible pricing, promotion and plan management — and an integrated, intelligent dashboard that provides real-time analytics; single sign-on to manage entitlements in real time; channel management plan design and controls; and a robust, exposed API set for straightforward integrations. And the Aria A+ Billing Platform's success-based pricing model serves both growing SaaS companies and Enterprises converting to SaaS equally well.
"We are extremely pleased with both our growing overall business momentum and the buoyancy of the Saas billing space in trying economic times," said Edward Sullivan, president & CEO, Aria Systems. "Our dramatic growth rate during the last quarter speaks not only to the effectiveness of our approach, but to the overall attractiveness of the SaaS billing business model relative to traditional billing platform options."
Dave Labuda, Aria Systems board member, as well as co-founder and former CEO of Portal Software, and past CTO of Oracle's Communications Global Business Unit, added, "The on-demand billing market is over-delivering on its overwhelming promise. Given its experience and proven operational success in the complex world of subscription-based billing, it's not surprising that Aria Systems is expanding its lead over the field as it continues to drive the market."
And Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Managing Director of THINKstrategies, Inc. and founder of the Software-as-a-Service Showplace, stated, "With SaaS and other on-demand services rapidly gaining customer acceptance and adoption, solution providers in this sector are increasingly recognizing the importance of having a robust transaction system that can enable them to quickly and easily bill and provision these services." Kaplan added, "Aria Systems' rapid growth is a reflection of the rapid maturation of the SaaS and on-demand services market."
About Aria Systems
Aria Systems is the leading provider of on-demand and subscription billing solutions encompassing the full spectrum of Billing and Customer Lifecycle Management services. The A+ Billing Platform offers clients the industry's most secure, flexible, and scalable tool for accelerating revenue capture, optimizing cash flow, and enabling actionable market intelligence while significantly reducing operating costs throughout each phase of the customer lifecycle.
Aria is the SaaS billing leader in terms of experience, execution, and reliability. The company has handled over one million accounts, and managed more than one billion transactions, since its inception in 2003. Additionally, Aria leads the market in security and compliance having achieved both end-to-end level one PCI Compliance and SAS70 compliance.
Aria's executive team has over 80 years combined experience in billing and 50 combined in SaaS, and is backed by investments from Hummer Winblad Partners, Venrock, and Dave Labuda, former CEO of Portal Software (acquired by Oracle). The company is headquartered in Media, Pa. (metropolitan Philadelphia), and has offices in the San Francisco bay area.
Media Contacts
Kevin M Jackson
Aria Systems
+1 484 234 8000