Interactive Intelligence Inc., a global developer of business communications software, was ranked by industry analyst firm, Gartner, Inc., among the top ten messaging vendors in its enterprise messaging market share report published this month ("Market Share: Enterprise Messaging Equipment, North America, 2003," Megan Fernandez, Nov. 9, 2004).
According to the report, Interactive Intelligence was one of several top ten vendors to show strong shipment improvements, increasing its market share from 5.3 percent in 2002, to 13.1 percent in 2003 within the 17-plus port messaging segment.
Interactive Intelligence has offered voice mail and unified messaging features as part of its business communications software, first launched in 1997. In 2001 the company launched a standalone unified communications product called Communit'e.
Communit'e is designed to give organizations a flexible migration path from legacy voice mail systems by enabling them to incorporate unified communications features when and where they are most beneficial. The product is targeted at distributed organizations, large and midsize firms with mobile workers, IP telephony and voice over IP service providers, and higher education institutions.
Communit'e is compatible with a wide variety of e-mail systems, such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Sun ONE, and supports text-to-speech and speech recognition technologies from vendors such as Microsoft, Nuance and Scansoft.
The product also enables voice mail-only and full unified communications users to exchange messages without integration requirements.
"Communit'e gave us a seamless interface to our existing two e-mail systems, and enabled users to configure their own find-me/follow-me, messaging and presence features," said Thomas Lamb, chief information officer for University of North Carolina Charlotte, an Interactive Intelligence customer with approximately 1,000 Communit'e users. "This has resulted in improved communications among students and staff, and a faster return on investment through reduced support costs."
Communit'e supports multiple telephony standards, including ISDN, T1, analog, Cisco TAPI, and SIP. This enables organizations that want to migrate to voice over IP while maintaining some legacy telephony capabilities, to still take advantage of Communit'e`s complete feature-set.
A browser-based in-box with voice mail-only store also gives users access to unified communications capabilities in a traditional voice mail environment. This redundant mail service, which enables users to access messages in the event of an e-mail outage, offers the added benefit of fault tolerance.
In addition, Communit'e offers universal ports, which give customers the flexibility to deploy a mixture of messaging applications, fax, interactive voice response, conferencing, and other features on the same port using a single communications platform. Ports can be added by simply purchasing new software licenses, and Communit'e`s LDAP-compliant directory servers provide scalability up to several hundred thousand users.
"We designed Communit'e to break down the barriers of an all or nothing migration from traditional voice mail to unified communications," said president and chief executive officer of Interactive Intelligence, Dr. Donald E. Brown. "I think that`s the main reason we`re seeing greater market acceptance. With Communit'e, customers get a secure, reliable, and flexible migration path determined by business need, not by technology limitations."
Interactive Intelligence has licensed approximately 67,000 seats of unified messaging to-date. In recognition of its unified messaging offering, the company received Network Computing Magazine`s 2003 Editor`s Choice Award, and Frost & Sullivan`s 2004 Product Innovation Award.
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Interactive Intelligence Inc. (Nasdaq: ININ) is a global developer of business communications software for IP telephony, contact centre automation, unified communications, and customer self-service. The company was founded in 1994 and has more than 1,000 customers worldwide. Recent company awards include Software Magazine`s 2004 Top 500 Global Software and Services Companies, and Network World Magazine`s 2003 Top 200. Interactive Intelligence employs approximately 350 people and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A. The company has 12 offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. The EMEA corporate office is located in Uxbridge, England, and serves more than 250 customers throughout EMEA, including companies such as Skandia, and Telefonica. Its telephone number is +44 20 8867 3670; on the Web: http://www.ININ.com.
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