Greg Galitzine : Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog
Greg Galitzine

Contact Center

Noble Systems to Acquire Amcat

November 7, 2007

The consolidation in the tech space is clearly not limited to the VoIP arena. Contact center players are getting in on the fun as well. According to a Marketwire report, Noble Systems Corporatiion is set to announce that it is acquiring AMCAT (as well as AMCAT UK and AMCAT Germany GmbH).  The combined entity will serve the whole breadth of the market from large-enterprise (Noble’s expertise) to small and medium-enterprise (Amcat’s target).   Check out Noble Systems Web site for more.

Interactive Intelligence Posts Record Numbers

January 31, 2008

Interactive Intelligence Inc., has reported record financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2007. Revenues for the 2007 fiscal year totaled $109.9 million, up 32 percent from $83.0 million in 2006. Fourth quarter revenues were $29.3 million, a 23 percent increase from $23.9 million in the same quarter last year.   “Our growth was largely driven by the significant value proposition offered by our unique all-in-one communications software suite for contact centers and enterprises,” said Interactive Intelligence CEO, Dr. Donald E. Brown.

Aspect Strikes Bluenote

July 9, 2008

Aspect continues its steady march to be a major player in unified communications, particularly in the contact center space. (TMC's Rich Tehrani covered the Aspect and UC angle in an earlier post.)   Today the company announced the acquisition of Tewksbury, Mass-based BlueNote Networks.   Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.   Leveraging BlueNote's technology, Aspect customers will now be able to extend SIP-based voice, video and other real-time interactive communication services to enterprise users as an integral part of a service oriented architecture (SOA).   According to the release announcing the acquisition:   By combining the features of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) with Web services, organizations will be able to drive innovation in the contact center and across the enterprise while radically lowering the cost and complexity of their voice, video and data services. Specifically, Aspect customers and prospects will now be able to:   ·        Quickly and easily incorporate SIP-based interactive multichannel communications into their contact centers and internal and customer-facing business processes using industry-standard interfaces and technology.   ·        Leverage existing IT and telephony application investments and development resources to build and deploy communications-enabled business applications and lay the foundation for enabling globally-reachable communication services and integrated workflow applications.   Today's acquisition reminds me of another similar situation. Nearly one year ago, NEC acquired Sphere Communications, essentially for their SOA technology.

Outrageous Interactions Contest Nearing Close

August 20, 2008

Saw this news item about Interactive Intelligence's "Outrageous Interactions" contest and how it's nearing the deadline for submissions.   It's a very entertaining concept that offers a fun look inside the contact center industry by allowing agents to share their most memorable customer interactions.   "Everyone hears about the consumer side of an interaction gone bad," says Joe Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Interactive Intelligence and the creative brain behind the contest. "We thought it would be appropriate to turn the tables and take a look at what experiences the contact center agents have had. And after seeing some of the entries, the word outrageous is a good descriptor."   The contest has been promoted for some time now. In fact, in his Ask the Expert column in Customer Interaction Solutions' July issue, Tim Passios, Interactive Intelligence's Director of Solutions Marketing, offered this example of a unique and memorable agent experience:   I'm a manager for a help desk.

Outrageous Interactions: Public Voting Begins Today!

September 8, 2008

If you've been following along with the Outrageous Interactions contest, today is an important day. The panel of expert judges has selected the finalists and voting is now open to the public to decide who will win the trip to Hawaii. Voters are eligible to win a Garmin eTrex GPS. To vote for your favorite entry, visit www.outrageousinteractions.com. Public voting closes Monday, Sept. 15 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern daylight time. I must say I've checked out the list of finalists and there are some wonderful entries to choose from. So click on over to Outrageous Interactions to see the finalists and vote for your chance to win!

SunPorch Picks Fonality Contact Center, Saves $100K

November 19, 2008

Fonality today announced a customer win with SunPorch, the Westport, CT-based manufacturer of sunroom kits. SunPorch says they have saved $100,000 by deploying Fonality's PBXtra Call Center solution. The news was announced here, and a case study detailing how SunPorch was able to reap the benefits of using a contact center solution built on open source can be found here.  

Interactive Intelligence Announces SMS Capability for CIC

November 24, 2008

Brendan Read of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine covers today's news that Interactive Intelligence would be adding short message service (SMS) as an additional media type to its all-in-one multi-channel contact center software suite, Customer Interaction Center or CIC.   The new SMS features are designed to help contact centers increase customer retention and satisfaction by enabling mobile customers to use SMS to communicate with the contact center; have those SMS messages routed, recorded, and reported on, the same way as other media types; enable contact center agents to reply using SMS; and enable notifications to customers to be sent via SMS.   Interactive plans to release the features by the end of Q4 08   Check out Brendan's article here.

Podcast: Interactive Intelligence & Business Process Automation

November 25, 2008

I recently recorded a podcast with Joe Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Interactive Intelligence, where we spoke about a new approach to business process automation. Ironically, what prompted this conversation was a white paper written by Interactive Intelligence CEO Dr. Don Brown entitled -- you guessed it -- A New Approach To Business Process Automation. The white paper is available for download here.   Staples gives several examples of business processes and how enterprises can really benefit by leveraging some sort of process automation strategy. In his opinion, the current trends of UC and CEBP (unified communications and communications enabled business processes, respectively) are fine as far as they go, but a new approach, one he dubs CBPA or communications-based process automation takes things to another level, offering enterprises a more efficient solution to their business needs.   I urge you to give the podcast a listen.

Genesys Acquires Conseros, SDE

January 22, 2009

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel-Lucent company today announced two acquisitions. The company has acquired German firm SDE Software Development Engineering GmbH ("SDE") as well as New Brunswick, Canada-based Conseros. SDE's primary product, called Genesys Customer Interaction Portal, is a Web-based thin client software solution designed to enable service providers deliver hosted contact center capabilities, such as self-service and agent-assisted service, to enterprise customers. The portal is a key component of Genesys' hosted contact center solution strategy. Conseros provides a key business application that enables enterprises to manage and distribute high volumes of work items virtually anywhere in the enterprise.

TMC Blogs: The Week in Review

January 23, 2009

What was the big story this week? No doubt it was the inauguration of Barack Obama, as the 44th President of the United States and the first African-American to hold that post. Truly a historic day for our nation: a day when many people put politics aside to welcome our newest leader to his job, and judging by the crowds in Washington, D.C. this past Tuesday it was quite a welcome indeed.   Rich is excited.
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