September 16, 2008 News Media Release

Austin Energy Listed on 2008

Ellen Asuncion                                                                         
Marketing Manager  
InformationWeek

Ed Clark
Director, Corporate Communication
Austin Energy

Austin Energy, the 9th largest public power utility, nationally recognized for its energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, has been listed on the 2008 InformationWeek 500. This is the second year in a row Austin Energy has been named to the InformationWeek 500 list. The 2008 InformationWeek 500 companies were revealed on September 15, 2008 at a gala awards ceremony held during the InformationWeek 500 Conference at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California.

"We are honored to be recognized by InformationWeek for our world class work on telecommunications," said Andres Carvallo, Chief Information Officer.

Austin Energy deployed a Voice Over IP communication platform throughout the enterprise (1,600 employees in 20 buildings). The VOIP Platform allowed Austin Energy to consolidate to a single supplier thus reducing the amount of annual maintenance costs, reduced network operating expenses by leveraging an existing OC-48 fiber network to every building, reduced overall staff support and employee training costs, decreased service response time by having increased technicians trained on a single platform, increased employee productivity by offering new phone and unified messaging functionality (administrative assistants claim a 20% increase in phone and communication productivity), increased over all customer satisfaction by 11% points. This project delivered a 12 month ROI and customers rave about the solution. This project closed on-time and slightly below budget and it is considered a great success.

"For 20 years, the InformationWeek 500 has honored the most innovative users of business technology," said InformationWeek Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston. "Year after year, InformationWeek 500 companies harness technology to improve efficiency, boost productivity, drive revenue, and establish a competitive advantage. We applaud this year’s winners, and the CIOs and other executives whose ingenuity and risk taking are at the center of business technology innovation."

InformationWeek has identified and honored the nation's most innovative users of information technology with its annual listing, now in its 20th year, and has tracked the technology, strategies, investments and administrative practices of America’s best-known companies.  The list is unique among corporate rankings because it spotlights the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders. 

About Austin Energy
Austin Energy is the 9th largest public power utility in the nation providing low cost reliable power to the capitol city of Texas and metro area, with annual revenues over $1.3 billion servicing 400,000 premises representing around 43,000 businesses and 1 million consumers.  Austin Energy is also recognized as an industry leader in conservation and renewable energy offering the most comprehensive residential and commercial energy efficiency programs in the nation; leader in distributed generation by operating the first fuel cell in Texas tied directly to the electric grid and the largest module combined heat and power plant in the nation, and leader in using the best solutions for information technology and telecommunications to deliver the first smart grid in the world by Q1 2009.

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