I know I’m late to the party on this but the recent news about Microsoft’s strategic partnership with Aspect Software to bring unified communications to the contact center is definitely one of the most significant business deals in the contact center space for 2008. You might say this deal represents Microsoft’s grand entry into the contact center space – or at least a very large step in that direction -- however, I wouldn’t lose sight of the fact that many of the other major contact center software makers have already rolled out UC offerings -- and have had customers using them for months.
As per the five year strategic alliance, the financial terms of which have not been disclosed, Aspect will design its Aspect Unified IP contact center solution to interoperate with Microsoft’s OCS platform for software-powered voice and unified communications, and will offer it as the leading option to new and existing customers (of course, existing customers can easily upgrade to the UC system). In addition, Microsoft is making an equity investment in Aspect to "accelerate the development and adoption of the new solutions and services."
Aspect is one of the largest and best-known providers of contact center solutions for the enterprise: Its solutions are deployed in call and contact centers all around the world. This deal is huge because it gives Microsoft a very large footprint in the contact center space almost instantly. Not to mention the opportunity to significantly accelerate adoption of OCS 2007, which, as you probably already know, can be used to roll out UC across the entire enterprise, and is fully interoperable with most other MS products, making it a very attractive value prop. (Consider this: 174 of the Fortune 500 companies have already licensed OCS)
Microsoft claims strong adoption of OCS 2007, coupled with the new tie-up with Aspect, puts the company on track to be “the top three enterprise voice provider in a few short years."
I think bringing Unified Communications to the contact center makes perfect sense, as it facilitates the next stage in the evolution of the “informal contact center,” where the barriers that separate the center from the rest of the organization are removed, and other knowledge workers within the organization can become “pseudo-customer-service reps,“ thus improving the customer experience. It is next step (a new layer) in the “virtualization” of the contact center -- afforded through the power of IP. I see Unified Communications as the next stage in delivering fully flexible communications – choose your mode of contact: IM, voice, email, video – from whatever device you want: desk phone, smart phone, laptop, home phone – use features like presence to determine availability – ad hoc conferencing and click-to-call. This new, robust (love that word), full-featured communication technology is ideally suited to the contact center: Now, customers, agents, managers, supervisors and other knowledge workers across the organizations can “connect with a click” and get the information they need -- thus achieving the much-coveted First Call (Contact) Resolution.
For more information and analysis about this big news I highly recommend you check out the following links:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/call-center/microsofts-call-center-push.html
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/unified-communications/microsoft-aspect-software-partner-on-unified-communications.asp
http://www.tmcnet.com/unified-communications/articles/23167-microsoft-aspect-announce-strategic-alliance.htm
http://hdvoice.tmcnet.com/topics/unified-communications/articles/23445-microsoft-aspect-partner-uc-contact-center-solutions.htm
http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/Analysis/articles/23669-microsoft-pushes-into-call-center-market-with-aspect.htm
As per the five year strategic alliance, the financial terms of which have not been disclosed, Aspect will design its Aspect Unified IP contact center solution to interoperate with Microsoft’s OCS platform for software-powered voice and unified communications, and will offer it as the leading option to new and existing customers (of course, existing customers can easily upgrade to the UC system). In addition, Microsoft is making an equity investment in Aspect to "accelerate the development and adoption of the new solutions and services."
Aspect is one of the largest and best-known providers of contact center solutions for the enterprise: Its solutions are deployed in call and contact centers all around the world. This deal is huge because it gives Microsoft a very large footprint in the contact center space almost instantly. Not to mention the opportunity to significantly accelerate adoption of OCS 2007, which, as you probably already know, can be used to roll out UC across the entire enterprise, and is fully interoperable with most other MS products, making it a very attractive value prop. (Consider this: 174 of the Fortune 500 companies have already licensed OCS)
Microsoft claims strong adoption of OCS 2007, coupled with the new tie-up with Aspect, puts the company on track to be “the top three enterprise voice provider in a few short years."
I think bringing Unified Communications to the contact center makes perfect sense, as it facilitates the next stage in the evolution of the “informal contact center,” where the barriers that separate the center from the rest of the organization are removed, and other knowledge workers within the organization can become “pseudo-customer-service reps,“ thus improving the customer experience. It is next step (a new layer) in the “virtualization” of the contact center -- afforded through the power of IP. I see Unified Communications as the next stage in delivering fully flexible communications – choose your mode of contact: IM, voice, email, video – from whatever device you want: desk phone, smart phone, laptop, home phone – use features like presence to determine availability – ad hoc conferencing and click-to-call. This new, robust (love that word), full-featured communication technology is ideally suited to the contact center: Now, customers, agents, managers, supervisors and other knowledge workers across the organizations can “connect with a click” and get the information they need -- thus achieving the much-coveted First Call (Contact) Resolution.
For more information and analysis about this big news I highly recommend you check out the following links:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/call-center/microsofts-call-center-push.html
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/unified-communications/microsoft-aspect-software-partner-on-unified-communications.asp
http://www.tmcnet.com/unified-communications/articles/23167-microsoft-aspect-announce-strategic-alliance.htm
http://hdvoice.tmcnet.com/topics/unified-communications/articles/23445-microsoft-aspect-partner-uc-contact-center-solutions.htm
http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/Analysis/articles/23669-microsoft-pushes-into-call-center-market-with-aspect.htm
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