Aspect Targets VOIP, SMB Markets; Links Arms With 3Com

The vendor also inked a joint development, sales and marketing deal with 3Com to deliver IP-PBXes with contact center capabilities.

Aspect's new Uniphi architecture gives partners and customers the flexibility to implement contact center solutions for PSTN, hybrid IP or pure voice-over-IP environments, said John Fomook, senior director of solutions marketing at Aspect, San Jose, Calif.

"The movement away from [PSTN call centers] is happening much slower than people would have predicted three to five years ago," Fomook said. "IP is finding traction in smaller companies, while larger customers want to stay with it and work IP in as a hybrid solution," he said.

The vendor's Aspect Enterprise call center product line, typically targeted at large enterprises with 200- to 400-member call centers, will now carry the Uniphi brand name, he said.

To support the new architecture, Aspect released Uniphi Connect, a solution that includes a new IP card that plugs into the vendor's automatic call distributor hardware, eliminating the need for third-party IP gateways. Uniphi Connect also includes an agent desktop so call center agents can plug into the system via any IP connection, which enables centralized management, administration and reporting for both PSTN- and IP-based agents.

In addition, the vendor introduced the latest version of its call routing software, Aspect Call Center version 9, to support the new hybrid IP architecture.

Both Uniphi Connect and Aspect Call Center version 9 are slated to be available in the fourth quarter. Pricing has not yet been determined.

In its first foray into the SMB market, Aspect also introduced Iphinity, a suite of products targeted at call centers with fewer than 150 agents. The first products in the suite include Iphinity Call Center and Iphinity Workforce Management.

Iphinity Call Center is a prepackaged hardware/software solution that includes voice routing, reporting, basic interactive voice response and Aspect's TeleSet phones. The system is also CTI-capable and supports the new Uniphi Connect IP telephony option.

The product is shipping now with Aspect Call Center version 8.4 and will be refreshed with version 9 when it is available. The solution is priced at $199,000 for 48 agents or $299,000 for 96 agents.

Iphinity Workforce Management, scheduled for release in October, provides Iphinity customers with forecasting, scheduling and reporting capabilities to help manage call center agents.

With its product line, Aspect is opening the door to a new market opportunity for solution providers by offering high-end features at a lower price point, said Donna Knilans, senior director and managing partner at Norstan, a solution provider based in Minneapolis.

"Smaller organizations have the same types of business demands and the same type of expectations to deliver superior customer-service results, and to meet those demands, they really are required to have the same contact center capabilities as larger customers," Knilans said.

Meanwhile, Aspect's deal with 3Com is aimed at developing, selling and marketing joint solutions that combine Aspect's call center technology with 3Com's VCX V7000 IP softswitch and NBX 100 Communications System IP-PBX.

Joint products, scheduled for availability in the first quarter of 2004, first will be sold direct, then later introduced to channel partners, said Himanshu Sahu, senior marketing manager for Enterprise Voice Systems at 3Com, Santa Clara, Calif.

3Com expects to target the joint solutions at large customers while utilizing its partnership with contact center vendor EasyRun to target smaller customers, Sahu said.

"Whether you work at home, the office, Las Vegas, Boston or Chicago, you are a virtual employee of an organization, and IP enables all of that," he said.