Stories about: Aspect Communications

My, how times have changed: A woman, Hillary Clinton, is a serious contender to be the next US president. But maybe they haven't changed all that much: According to the US National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), there has been an astounding 70 per cent decline in the number of incoming undergraduate women choosing to major in computer science between 2000 and 2005.

Interactive Intelligence, an Indianapolis provider of VOIP software largely used in contact centers, is having a banner year. Sales are double what they were a year ago, which is validation for a pioneer in the use of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Carolyn Duffy Marsan chatted with Interactive Intelligence CEO Don Brown about his company and broader industry trends. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

Privately held Concerto Software is to acquire Aspect Communications in a deal valued at US$1 billion that could create the world's largest call center products and services company, the pair said Tuesday.

Hosted CRM (customer relationship management) evangelist Salesforce.com began a new branding campaign this week to draw attention to its customer-service support functionality, launching a new Web site at Supportforce.com and announcing a batch of partnerships with top call center infrastructure vendors.

Networking vendor 3Com has introduced its first WAN router line. The new products are made by Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies, a move that highlights 3Com's increasing reliance on business partners and operations in Southeast Asia for technology development and product manufacturing.

There are two things that always need improvement: airline food and telephone customer service. To address the latter issue, several new products are on tap at this week's International Call Center Management Conference and Expo in Chicago.

Alcatel SA subsidiary Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc. Tuesday unveiled software that uses voice-recognition features to help users automate the handling of customer service phone calls.

Aspect Communications Corp., RightForce, and Blue Pumpkin Software Inc. are all scheduled to unveil call center workforce optimization solutions this week designed to help companies ensure their call centers are staffed with the best agents armed with critical data needed to ensure customer satisfaction.

Converged voice/data WAN projects and applications are helping customer call centers of all sizes cut costs and to become more efficient. Benefits include savings on long-distance and local phone charges as well as improved performance of customer call agents due to better-integrated voice and data technology.

Macromedia on Tuesday is set to announce availability of Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, which unites communications and applications to boost Web sites, the company said.

Aspect Communications and Oracle have formed a technology alliance to integrate Aspect's server with Oracle's E-Business Suite to give customer service representatives access to back-office data.