Aberdeen releases UC report

There is no bad news for the VOIP community, according to Aberdeen Group's latest round of research on unified communications. But the good news may pose new business challenges, states VOIP Planet.

In Unified Communications: Lifeblood of the Contact Centre, researchers looked at UC adoption in over 190 enterprises, fully half those companies say they are or will be evaluating UC within the next 18 months, a figure researchers call "astounding".

The challenge for VOIP has to do with the cost of entry. To make UC adoption happen in contact centres, VOIP vendors will have to do some heavy lifting, investing significant time and energy in prospect firms.

Salesforce.com has picked up important new functionality with the acquisition of InStranet, a maker of self-service software for contact centres, says CRM buyer.

At $31.5 million, the purchase is a major deal for the SaaS pioneer, which has focused on acquiring much smaller niche technologies in the past.

InStranet not only fills a functional gap in Salesforce.com's customer service feature set, but also brings to the table many large customers and a huge footprint in large contact centres around the world.

SafeAuto Insurance will expand its sales and customer service capacity by establishing a contact centre and backup data centre to service customers nationwide, reports Expansion Management.

SafeAuto is a regional insurance provider offering insurance in 14 states to individuals who wish to carry only the state-required minimum coverage.

The Somerset contact centre will create more than 260 fulltime jobs, representing an annual payroll of $7.3 million.