Atio Corporation US has drawn the battle lines for the US small- to medium-business call centre market with its CyberCall call centre offering. Atio created new momentum in the Internet call centre market with the launch of CyberCall 2.5 in early 1998. Following this the all-media version, 3.0, was released in September 1998 and is enjoying significant market recognition, having won several industry awards, trade and financial press recognition and customer successes.
Atio focuses strongly on a channel strategy through major systems integrators and OEM agreements with global communications vendors to bundle CyberCall with their products in the call centre space. Atio also partners with vendors of customer relationship management, helpdesk and electronic commerce software. "Atio is targeting aggressive market penetration in forming these alliances," says Bouwe Hamersma, Atio`s chief technology officer. "The call centre market in the US, like the rest of the world, is growing quickly, especially at the medium to small segment. In the US market this includes call centres up to hundreds of agents. "By following a channel strategy and offering a single all-media architecture, we are simplifying the call centre concept for the customer, thus reducing the number of vendors they have to deal with for the complete solution. In so doing the implementation cycle is reduced, the integration effort is much lower, and the total cost of ownership is reduced," says Hamersma.
Hamersma says Atio has differentiated itself from the competition by offering a product that embodies the all-media concept, which industry experts believe to be the next wave in call centre technology development. "Customers can choose to interact via their medium of choice, be it telephone, fax, e-mail, Web callback, chat, voice over IP or Web collaboration," Hamersma says. "In addition, CyberCall`s modular design means companies can embrace call centre functionality at their own pace, by adding components as the business expands."
Although the US market is vast (Frosts and Sullivan predicts that the US call centre market will be worth $10,5 billion in 2001), Atio is also targeting other major markets through its presence in the UK and Singapore. Atio`s channel partners include Norstan, a $456-million systems integration house and a large Siemens communications reseller. Atio has an OEM agreement with Siemens Information and Communication Networks through which CyberCall is bundled with certain PBXs. Atio`s key technology partners are Microsoft and Dialogic, a market leader in voice processing hardware and software. Of note was the announcement at the March 99 Computer Telephony Exhibition in Los Angeles that Microsoft is licensing Dialogic`s CT Media and investing in Dialogic.
Atio has extended its business partner strategy to the e-commerce space, where it is forging alliances with two leading e-commerce platform providers in IBM and Microsoft. Hamersma says Atio`s business partner model is the key to success. "The packaging concept for CyberCall, together with our technology partners, positions Atio for call centre mass marketing. Together, Dialogic, Microsoft and Compaq have defined the computer telephony or CT server that applications such as CyberCall are bundled with to overcome the integration complexity traditionally associated with call centres. Atio recognised early on the potential of CT media and CT server concepts and this approach has been velidated through our choice of partners. We are ready for the call centre future," Hamersma says.
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