HORSHAM, Pa., April 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Astea International Inc., the leader in service management and mobile workforce solutions, today announced it has attained a Gold Application Development competency, demonstrating a "best-in-class" ability and commitment to meet Microsoft Corp. customers' evolving needs in today's dynamic business environment and distinguishing itself within the top 1 percent of Microsoft's partner ecosystem.

To earn a Microsoft gold competency, partners must successfully complete exams (resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals) to prove their level of technology expertise, and then designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity. They also must submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects (along with implementing a yearly customer satisfaction study), meet a revenue commitment (for most gold competencies), and pass technology and/or sales assessments.

Whether on-premise or in the cloud, Astea is the only global solution provider that offers all the cornerstones of service lifecycle management: customer management; service management; asset management; forward and reverse logistics management; third party vendor management; and mobile workforce management with enhanced workforce planning, scheduling and optimization. Astea's solutions are seamlessly orchestrated to share and leverage information throughout the service lifecycle – removing the traditional barriers between the field and back office. With Astea's solution modularity, companies can introduce one module at a time or deploy a seamless information backbone across the entire service lifecycle continuum.

"Once again, we are extremely pleased to have achieved a Gold Application Development Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network. Achieving this competency demonstrates our expertise and commitment to leveraging the latest technology to deliver solutions that drive proven benefits for our customers," said John Tobin, President, Astea International. "As an industry leader in service management solutions, we continue to innovate and deliver the broadest and deepest set of capabilities that enable companies to connect, manage, optimize and transform all facets of their customer service delivery ecosystem. Astea is uniquely qualified to meet the mission-critical service transformation challenges and requirements of global organization."

"By achieving a gold competency, partners have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment to the latest Microsoft technology," said Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. "These partners have a deep expertise that puts them in the top 1 percent of our partner ecosystem, and their proficiency will help customers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology."

Earning the Application Development competency helps partners differentiate themselves as a trusted expert to their customers through development and deployment of commercial or custom applications built using core Microsoft technologies. By gaining access to a comprehensive set of benefits through the Application Development competency, partners can acquire new customers and help them be more productive and profitable through deployment of business applications, advanced web portals or rich client user interfaces that run on premises or in the cloud.

About Astea International
Astea International is a global provider of software solutions that offer all the cornerstones of service lifecycle management, including customer management, service management, asset management, forward and reverse logistics management and mobile workforce management and optimization. Astea's solutions link processes, people, parts, and data to empower companies and provide the agility they need to achieve sustainable value in less time, and successfully compete in a global economy. Since 1979, Astea has been helping more than 600 companies drive even higher levels of customer satisfaction with faster response times and proactive communication, creating a seamless, consistent and highly personalized experience at every customer relationship touch point.

www.astea.com. Service Smart. Enterprise Proven.

© 2015 Astea International Inc. Astea and Astea Alliance are trademarks of Astea International Inc.  All other company and product names contained herein are trademarks of the respective holders.

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SOURCE Astea International Inc.