Exstream Software, Inc. announced today that its Dialogue software has been selected by Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), the regulated utility serving Central Maryland, to create more than 1.3 million personalized customer communications monthly. Based in Baltimore, BGE is a member of Constellation Energy (NYSE: CEG), a Fortune 500 integrated energy company. BGE will implement Dialogue to build personalized documents that include targeted customer communications, data-driven charts and graphics and the use of color. With Dialogue, BGE plans to reduce costs and maintain greater control over the creation of customer documents, while still being able to outsource production and delivery to its third-party service provider. Key drivers in the selection of Dialogue include design independence for the extended enterprise, its ability to accept virtually any input stream, including XML, and its ease of use. The utility wanted to outsource the production of its documents, but still retain control over content, format, on-demand changes, and the inclusion of regulatory-driven communications in the documents. Dialogue makes it possible for BGE to keep the design function in house since BGE’s staff can build applications without specialized programming knowledge. Additionally, Dialogue will provide BGE with the ability to automatically map and process XML input. “We debated the concept of totally outsourcing document composition or bringing it in house. Dialogue provides a happy medium,” said Ray Alleman, IT consultant for BGE. “Its ease of use will make it possible to develop personalized bills and inserts with minimal effort. With Dialogue, we will be able to manipulate the application and print test documents in our own location and on our own time schedule allowing greater control over the finished product. Additionally, Dialogue will eliminate the need for third-party changes to communications, which can be very costly.” An additional consideration in choosing Dialogue was its capacity to distribute complex communications through multiple delivery channels. BGE plans to offer enhanced electronic versions of its bills in the future, making this another important capability Dialogue offers. BGE also plans to use Dialogue to eliminate the expense of producing separate inserts by putting customer-relevant campaigns directly on the invoice. “Providing a collaborative, distributed design environment gives companies more control over document content design,” said Davis Marksbury, president and CEO of Exstream Software. “BGE is wise to create an environment that takes advantage of the breadth of functionality an enterprise personalization solution like Dialogue offers."