Available both as traditional software and on an outsourced basis, Logisense's EngageIP Billing/OSS solution offers broad flexibility for a wide range of users, from banks to service providers.

by Jeff Goldman [October 29, 2001]

Logisense, based in Ontario, Canada, was founded in 1993 to offer billing solutions to a range of online businesses. Michael Youssef, the company's Vice President of Business Development, stresses that Logisense's target market is far broader than simply the ISP industry. "The business itself doesn't have to be necessarily 100 percent geared to online service," he said. "It could be a bank, a mutual fund company, or an ISP or ASP."

The point is flexibility. Logisense's EngageIP Billing/OSS billing solution uses a COM/ISAPI based architecture, enabling a company to adjust the application to fit their needs. "There's probably no single solution that will meet every single requirement for a particular company," Youssef said. "Where we come in is that we have an extremely customizable and scalable core."

That flexibility, Youssef explains, allows EngageIP Billing/OSS to support just about anyone who wants to put their offering online: everyone, from a bank to an ISP, has to be able to rate, bill, and provision the services they offer. "What we've done is we've built the application so that the underlying logic allows you to do those functions for pretty much any business," Youssef said.

EngageIP Billing/OSS (519) 249-0508 sales@logisense.com

In addition to EngageIP Billing/OSS, Logisense offers two complementary applications. The DNS Manager System is an automated domain management solution for web hosts, and CacheXpress provides an automated caching solution, available both as software and as a turnkey server appliance. Both applications, of course, work seamlessly with EngageIP Billing/OSS.

Focused on flexibility
EngageIP Billing/OSS runs on Windows 2000, and uses SQL Server as a database. For companies that don't want to invest in SQL Server, however, MSDE is included for free as a scaled-down, fully compatible alternative. The solution also integrates easily with any UNIX-based infrastructure, though Youssef suggests that Windows makes more fiscal sense. "When you weigh both against each other, I feel that a lot of people will come to the conclusion that the advantages of Windows overweigh the advantages of Linux," he said.

The solution is fully web-enabled, allowing customer and support staff to access key information from any PC with a browser. Security is highly flexible, allowing for a specific set of permissions for each user. All processing is fully automated, and supports both flat rate and usage-based billing. The latest version of the software, EngageIP Billing/OSS 5.2, was recently released: the new version adds a domain name registration module and a more powerful online interface for customer self-service.

A number of modules are available to add functionality in a range of areas. The EngageIP Billing/OSS Software Development Kit allows a company to handle their own modifications to the solution in-house. The EngageIP Billing/OSS Residence Management Module uses both EngageIP Billing/OSS and CacheXpress to permit hotel managers and property owners to offer Internet access to their residents on a pay-per-use basis. And the EngageIP Billing/OSS Prepaid Module allows an ISP to offer prepaid Internet access.

Installation, Youssef says, couldn't be easier. Logisense uses remote access software to conduct the install of the solution on the customer's system. Once the installation is completed, the customer receives training to help them adjust to the new solution. "We try to bypass that issue of difficulty that people experience whenever they have any new toy," he said. "We want to get people comfortable, asking all the questions that they have, and up and running right away."

EngageIP Billing/OSS's pricing is tiered according to the number of active users: the price ranges from $3.50 to $0.75 per user, depending on the volume purchased. There's a minimum purchase of 500 user licenses to start, though after your first purchase, you can come back to buy as few as ten additional licenses at a time. All software is backed by a 30-day money back guarantee, though Youssef says they've never had a single request for a return.

Annual upgrade and support plans range from $999 to $24,000 per year, plus 10 percent of the license fee. Youssef says Logisense's technical support is a key asset for all of the company's customers. "If there's one thing that puts us far away from all of our competition, it's our support staff," he said. "You'll find that our support is considered second to none."

There's one more key aspect to Logisense's offering -- the newly released EngageIP Billing/OSS ASP. The outsourced version of EngageIP Billing/OSS makes it easier for a company to take on the solution quickly, with a minimum of upfront costs. A white paper on the company's site makes the difference vividly clear, suggesting that the ASP solution will save a business 40% over an in-house implementation of EngageIP Billing/OSS.

Youssef contends that the outsourced offering is a breakthrough for any company seeking a billing solution. "When the traditional billing systems were new in the market, they were the best thing since sliced bread, but they were expensive," he said. "This gives people the opportunity to make a lot of money and not worry about problems happening on their side, because they're farming it out to somebody who's an expert in the business."

More for the price
The Nebraska-based DTN SpeedNet is the ISP subsidiary of the e-commerce and information services company, DTN. DTN SpeedNet, which only launched a few months ago, offers both fixed wireless and dialup access as a turnkey solution to mostly rural customers in Nebraska, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.

As the ISP set up shop, customer service representative Kevin Johnson organized the search for a billing solution. They haven't signed any contracts yet, he says, but they're pretty much set on EngageIP Billing/OSS, for one key reason. "Because we're a wireless ISP, we have to deal with billing and shipping equipment," Johnson said. "We have to send out antennas and cards to be put into the computers, and EngageIP Billing/OSS is one of the few that looks like they can handle this pretty well."

Other billing solutions Johnson considered didn't have the flexibility he needed. "They hadn't dealt with having to ship or bill for equipment before, or they didn't look like they had a good interface for it," he said. "And they couldn't deal with issues with taxes very well: service taxes versus sales tax on equipment, things like that. There's all kinds of issues that come up when you have to deal with billing for more than the service."

Pricing was also a significant issue for Johnson. "Some of the others ended up being a lot cheaper, and some ended up being a lot more expensive," he said. "We found that, for how robust EngageIP Billing/OSS appears to be, it was a pretty good deal. The ones that were far cheaper, you get what you pay for. It looked like we would be getting more from EngageIP Billing/OSS for the price."

Youssef agrees, and he notes that the best customers are the ones who look around before they buy. "There are people who have pretty much taken apart every single application out there, customers that are very prudent in their research, and in the end they've come to us," he said.

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Online resources:
		ISP-Billing Directory

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