Aspect Software, Inc, the world`s largest company solely focused on the contact centre, today announced as part of its Unified IP strategy, that in the fourth quarter 2006, Aspect Unified IP will be generally available.
The new product will include all of the features and functionality of the current Aspect Software unified offerings - a complete contact centre product that incorporates a robust set of applications, unites inbound, outbound and blended multi-channel contact in a highly scalable architecture that enables single administration of as many as 15 000 agents. Additionally, the product enables customers to select their transport of choice - closed IP, open source IP or traditional voice.
"Last September`s merger of Aspect Communications and Concerto Software made it possible for us to accelerate the creation of Aspect Unified IP, which brings together the best components of three of our products - Aspect EnsemblePro, Aspect Uniphi Suite and Aspect Enterprise Contact Server," said Ralph Breslauer, executive vice-president of global sales and marketing at Aspect Software. "Most importantly, with Aspect Unified IP we are delivering on our promise to customers to converge capabilities and reduce integration requirements in a fashion that offers them the most choice to meet their specific requirements."
The beta version of Aspect Unified IP 6.2, expected to be available at the beginning of the third quarter 2006, is the next iteration of the company`s Unified IP Contact Centre product line. Aspect Unified IP incorporates an automatic call distributor (ACD), voice portal, quality management and recording, a predictive dialler and Internet contact. It also provides unified reporting, routing and administration functionality and hosted capabilities with multi-tenancy, while running on the customer`s transport of choice. These transport options include:
* Open source IP PBX solution, such as the Asterisk Business Edition package offered by Aspect Software at significantly less than the cost of traditional IP PBX.
* Closed source IP PBX, offered by companies like Cisco, Avaya and Nortel.
* Any session initiation protocol (SIP) 2.0 compliant PBX.
* Traditional voice telephony.
Aspect Unified IP represents the next release for those customers currently using Aspect EnsemblePro and the migration platform for Aspect Enterprise Contact Server or Aspect Uniphi Suite customers with no additional charge for like capabilities, under the terms of their maintenance agreements.
The Aspect Software IP strategy takes advantage of the openness and ubiquity of coice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) - notably via SIP - to deliver a new and better contact centre. It gives customers the choice between embracing IP to address increasingly dynamic processes and practices with its open Unified IP Contact Centre product line or to migrate to IP over time with its Signature product line. It provides greater choice, flexibility, productivity and control without compromising the contact centre functionality that customers expect from Aspect Software offerings.
"Our Unified IP strategy recognises the evolution, standardisation and market acceptance of IP, notably via SIP, as well as the maturation and market acceptance of a unified contact centre offering. And we are seeing increased market opportunities as a result of this natural convergence," said Gary Barnett, chief technology officer and executive vice-president of technical services at Aspect Software. "Additionally, as this convergence occurs, we uniquely understand that businesses are demanding a choice of IP plumbing: open source or closed source IP and Aspect Unified IP clearly meets this need."
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Aspect Software, Inc, the founder of the contact centre industry, is the world`s largest company solely focused on providing proven, innovative contact centre products and services that enable the key business processes of customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing. Each day, thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centres around the globe conduct more than 125 million customer interactions using Aspect Software products. Aspect Software believes in using the power of technology to positively transform the customer-company experience. That belief has led Aspect Software to accept the challenge of developing the world`s most reliable automatic call distributors (ACDs), most trusted diallers, most widely-used and respected workforce management (WFM) solutions, most flexible voice self-service systems and the industry`s first and most comprehensive unified, multi-channel contact centre solution. Headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts, Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.
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