Johannesburg, 14 Feb 2008
Nasdaq-listed software company Interactive Intelligence says its partners in SA have performed exceptionally well.
According to David Paulding, regional sales manager for the UK and Africa, SA is the second-highest revenue producer in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
"SA is only surpassed by the Netherlands in terms of revenue. We have been very pleased with the performance of our primary partners Dimension Data and Atio. In fact, Atio has been our top global reseller on several occasions," he says.
The specialist unified communications provider is planning to release version 3.0 of its Customer Interaction Centre suite in SA, towards the end of February.
"We've put a lot of effort into this version, introducing new features and enhancing others. In security, for instance, we've added encryption for voice over IP calls and added to our voice recording platform to allow these recordings to be used in courts with full verification that they have not been tampered," explains Paulding.
The launch of the new software is expected to provide strong revenue growth over the next two years, says Paulding.
Investigating presence
While Interactive Intelligence is pleased with its local partners, Paulding admits the group gets requests for direct relationships.
"It's inevitable that you are going to get some customers or resellers who would prefer to cut out the middle man. But we are happy with who we have and have no desire to change the current operating environment," he says.
Additionally, a local operation could be in the offing.
Explains Paulding: "SA is a strong market for us, so yes, we have discussed on several occasions setting up a presence. It's not a firm strategy at this stage, but if the region continues to do as well as it has done, then we probably will. Again, this would not result in a changing of partners, but rather would be aimed at providing improved service and support."
As for concerns over SA's energy crises and a downturn in global economies, Paulding says the company remains cautiously optimistic.
"There are always opportunities to be had. For instance, we are seeing heightened interest in our mobile solutions from the South African market as a result of the power cuts. You've just got to find those angles and we believe we have the partners that are capable of doing so," he concludes.
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