CMP Media Recognizes Industry Visionaries With Business Technology Optimization Award

InformationWeek Fall Conference -- CMP Media and Mercury Interactive Corporation (NASDAQ: MERQ) unveiled the winners of the 2003 BTO Excellence Awards Monday night during a gala dinner ceremony at the InformationWeek Fall Conference.

The BTO Excellence Awards, sponsored by Mercury Interactive and presented by InformationWeek, Network Computing and Optimize, were issued to leading companies that are setting new standards in four seminal components of BTO:

   -- Aligning IT for Business Growth
   -- Managing Costs for Maximum Efficiency
   -- Improving Application Performance and Quality
   -- IT Process Excellence

There were nearly 100 entries submitted for this year's BTO Excellence Awards. The top four companies who were selected as outstanding in their category for aligning IT with the business goals of their organization were 1-800-FLOWERS.COM (NASDAQ: FLWS), leading multi-channel retailer of thoughtful gifts for all occasions; AXA Financial, one of the nation's premier financial services organizations; PNC Financial Services Group (NYSE: PNC), one of the nation's largest diversified financial services organizations; and Xcel Energy, a major U.S. electricity and natural gas company.

PNC Financial Services won in the Aligning IT for Business Growth category. For PNC Financial Services Group, BTO led to outstanding results for PNC's Regional Community Bank, with significantly increased checking relationships, customer retention and customer satisfaction, enabled by integrated multi-channel sales and servicing that helped PNC employees create a differentiated customer experience.

AXA Financial won in the Managing Costs for Maximum Efficiency category. With 25 percent of customer financial transactions completed through the web, BTO helped AXA Financial sustain 99+ percent availability on its web-based retail application for sales associates. Time to market was reduced by 65 percent, with a 400 percent gain in IT staff productivity.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM won in the Improving Application Performance and Quality category. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM measures, monitors and pursues practices that continuously improve the process of delivering high quality products and services throughout the complete project lifecycle. On the peak business days leading up to Mother's Day this year, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM processed more than 150,000 orders per day.

Xcel Energy won in the IT Process Excellence category. Xcel Energy centralized IT and created a program management office, responsible for aligning IT with the energy provider's rapidly evolving business strategies. After eight months, 85% of IT projects are now in compliance to IT process standards, demonstrating a remarkable capability to sustain IT process excellence.

"We are pleased to see so many companies pushing the envelope when it comes to aligning IT with business goals and experiencing significant payoff in terms of incremental opportunity and strategic gains," said Michael Friedenberg, vice president and publisher of InformationWeek. The BTO Excellence Award winners are true leaders and the progress they've made in deriving value from their IT systems demonstrates the potential for BTO."

In addition to being acknowledged during the 2003 InformationWeek Fall Conference, the four winning companies will be featured in a BTO Best Practices advertorial supplement appearing in InformationWeek, Optimize and Network Computing.

About CMP Media LLC

CMP Media LLC (http://www.cmp.com/) is a leading integrated media company providing essential information and marketing services to the entire technology spectrum-the builders, sellers and users of technology worldwide. Capitalizing on its editorial strength, CMP is uniquely positioned to offer marketers comprehensive, integrated media solutions tailored to meet their individual needs. Its diverse products and services include newspapers, magazines, Internet products, research, direct marketing services, education and training, tradeshows and conferences, and custom publishing.

   Contact:
   Joseph Braue, 212-592-8214
   CMP Media LLC
   jbraue@cmp.com

SOURCE: CMP Media LLC

CONTACT: Joseph Braue of CMP Media LLC, +1-212-592-8214, jbraue@cmp.com

Web site: http://www.cmp.com/