The latest news and information from Aspect Software. http://www.aspect.com/News/PressReleases.html 2008-05-13T18:14:38+01:00 http://www.aspect.com http://www.aspect.com/favicon.ico text/html 2008-05-13T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease5_13_08 MEXICO CITY -- 13 May 2008 – Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on Unified Communications for the Contact Center™, announced that Corsidian, its regional partner and a leading contact center technology provider, is offering the latest version of Aspect Unified IP, an all-in-one, IT-ready contact center solution, in the Latin America region. This software was specifically created to unify multiple contact center capabilities in a single software platform and allow clients to use additional functionality as needed.“At Corsidian, we focus on offering the most innovative solutions to the contact center market and the best ROI to help maximize our client’s experience”, said Alejandro Suárez, chief operating officer, Corsidian. “Therefore, we believe that offering a platform such as Aspect Unified IP will make history in the Latin American contact center industry, due to the product’s functionality and the robustness of the solution. Aspect Unified IP enables contact centers to manage, improve and automate collections, customer service and telemarketing while maintaining low administration costs, integration and maintenance, and improving customer-company interactions.“Leveraging its extensive experience in the contact center space and the technology industry, Corsidian will support the Aspect Software unified approach by offering Aspect Unified IP in the Latin American and Caribbean regions. The company is exclusively focused on assisting contact centers in technology selection and implementation and understands companies’ needs for robust and reliable contact center solutions.“Corsidian has been very successful to date selling Aspect solutions to some of the largest banking and telecom institutions in Latin America,” said Paul Bullett, vice president, Caribbean and Latin America region, Aspect Software. “Aspect and Corsidian believe that by offering an all-in-one, unified solution, we will help these companies further reduce the complexity of managing the contact center, speed investment returns, and improve the experience these companies deliver to customers.”Aspect Unified IP is a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based voice over IP (VoIP) product that unites full-featured automatic call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, Internet contact, workflow management, multichannel recording and quality management applications in a single software platform, giving business and IT optimal choice and control.Corsidian has immediate availability of Aspect Unified IP. If you need more information, please contact info@corsidian.comAbout CorsidianCorsidian is one of the leading providers of the contact center solutions industry. We have the experience and the personnel to assist our clients in the creation of contact solutions that help them acquire new clients while increasing the loyalty and the satisfaction of their current client base. Our more than ten years’ experience, as well as our installed solution base for contact centers vouch our commitment with our clients, offering them a specific strategy to improve their results and operations.  www.corsidian.comAbout Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world's largest company focused solely on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions help two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100 and a variety of small and medium enterprises to communications-enable their customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. # # # Aspect, Unified IP, Unified Communications for the Contact Center and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.    text/html 2008-05-05T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease5_5_08c CHELMSFORD, Mass., 5 May 2008 - The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect Software, the world’s largest company solely focused on Unified Communications for the Contact Center™, today announced the general availability of Aspect Quality Management 2.8.1, which provides the recording and quality management capabilities of PerformanceEdge™.  This release offers tight integrations to Aspect Unified IP, VoIP recording for Aspect CallCenter ACD, and enables Aspect customers to reap the benefits of advanced recording and quality management using a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based VoIP or a time-division multiplexing (TDM) telephony platform.Aspect Quality Management 2.8.1 includes a connector that enables the product to record voices and screens of agents using Aspect Unified IP 6.5 and higher. This helps companies achieve full-time call logging, rules-based recording driven by specific business criteria, or on-demand ad hoc recording of specific interactions.  Recordings are then made available for playback and evaluation via the Aspect Quality Management interface. In addition, Aspect Quality Management now supports VoIP-based recording for the Aspect CallCenter ACD 9.1, including full-time call recording and logging on SIP trunks and phones.“Quality management and recording capabilities have already provided contact centers with measurable improvements to their overall customer experiences, as well as aided in regulatory compliance,” said Paul Stockford, president and chief analyst at Saddletree Research.  “It will play an equally key role for every organization’s unified communications strategy.  With this enhancement to PerformanceEdge, Aspect Software is continuing to demonstrate innovation in the performance optimization space by extending screen recording to other key applications that are used in managing customer interactions, and by aligning their solutions with market demands and key contact center strategies.”With this release, Aspect customers can gain greater insight into their company-customer interactions by taking advantage of a standards-based, feature-rich, single recording solution for multi-platform environments, while maintaining their existing contact center infrastructures.“In today’s tough economy, it is rare to see a company that isn’t trying to do more with fewer resources in every area of business.  We believe these enhancements to Aspect Quality Management give our customers an advantage by helping them obtain more detailed information from their existing technology applications,” said Robert Kelly, vice president, PerformanceEdge Group.  “Since more companies are looking to implement SIP-based VoIP contact center solutions, these organizations will need quality management tools to record and monitor calls, within the contact center and also for calls that extend out to experts within the enterprise.  Because it can provide those capabilities, PerformanceEdge quality management is ideal for every contact center, and particularly compelling for companies looking to develop a unified communications for the contact center strategy.  Customers will be able to better pinpoint areas for improvement in agent productivity and business processes, as well as optimize their customer interactions and increase customer loyalty.”  About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions.  The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals.  For more information, visit www.performanceedgesuite.com.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center.  Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  # Aspect, PerformanceEdge, Aspect Quality Management, Unified IP, CallCenter ACD, Unified Communications for the Contact Center and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries.  The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-04-16T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease4_16_08 Fort Myers, Fla. and Chelmsford, Mass. – April 16, 2008 – CallMiner, the leader in advanced speech analytics, and Aspect Software, the world’s largest company focused solely on unified communications for the contact center, today announce that Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH), an integrated system of hospitals and a 500-physician medical group, will be deploying Aspect® Unified IP™ coupled with CallMiner Eureka. The implementation of Aspect’s unified contact center platform that offers automatic call distributor (ACD), voice portal, dialer, quality management, and unified reporting, routing and administration capabilities, and CallMiner’s sophisticated speech analytics functionality, will enable the organization to greatly enhance overall patient care.The ENH contact center, which supports more than 50 clinical departments and physician locations where it can route calls, is key to helping the organization differentiate itself in a competitive market. By automatically recording, monitoring and analyzing every call, the health system can apply the knowledge learned from patient conversations to improve the quality of customer service and patient care.“Chicago is a very competitive market where patients have vast healthcare choices,” said Fran Horner, senior director of patient access for Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, “So we know we need to differentiate ourselves when it comes to patient care and service. We decided to integrate CallMiner Eureka with our existing Aspect Unified IP platform so we could create a very detailed view of our patient processes and determine how well our agents and processes are performing for the customer. Together, the solutions will let us better serve our patients by improving contact center productivity and ensuring that we are handling each call in the most sensitive and beneficial manner while maintaining compliance with healthcare regulations, which is critical to us in the overall care we are delivering to patients.”Integrating Aspect Unified IP with Eureka provides ENH with an all-inclusive contact center platform that reduces complexity and improves the patient experience. Now, the organization can better understand why patients are calling and see how well agents are handling those calls, while ensuring reduced risk and HIPPA compliance. “Our customers are becoming increasingly interested in how unified solutions and speech analytics can enhance their business processes,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of product management, Aspect Software. “Evanston Northwestern Healthcare has been using our unified solution for years and has seen the benefits first-hand. By coupling robust contact center capabilities with a comprehensive speech analytics solution, the organization will be able to enhance their services and deliver tangible value to their patients.” “CallMiner’s speech analytics technology will help Evanston Northwestern Healthcare differentiate itself because it will now have access to the ‘true’ voice of its patients,” said Jeff Gallino, CTO, chairman and co-founder for CallMiner. “Eureka automatically captures and analyzes all details from every contact center call so the organization can apply that knowledge to improve customer service and agent quality. By utilizing both Aspect Unified IP and Eureka, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare will be able to further discover areas for coaching and training, helping the organization realize tangible productivity improvements very quickly in a competitive environment.”About Evanston Northwestern HealthcareLocated in Chicago’s northern suburbs, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) is an integrated healthcare system that includes Evanston, Glenbrook and Highland Park Hospitals, ENH Medical Group (comprising 68 medical offices and facilities), ENH Home Services, ENH Research Institute and ENH Foundation.Through its affiliation with Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, ENH supports extensive medical education and research programs. ENH is in the top nine percent of all institutions that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health, and ranks 9th in the nation among multi-specialty independent research hospitals.Evanston Northwestern Healthcare has been named as one of the nation's 100 Top Hospitals® and the only Illinois hospital ranked as a Top 15 Major Teaching Hospital by Thomson Healthcare®, a leading source of healthcare information products. This is the 12th time ENH has received this recognition — the most times of any healthcare system in the country.ENH is also recognized as a leader for implementing technology and improving processes to advance the safety and quality of patient care. Hospitals and Health Networks magazine recently named ENH one of the “Most Wired” healthcare organizations in the nation. For more information on Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, visit http://www.enh.org.About CallMinerCallMiner is the leader in advanced speech analytics.  Eureka, the company’s flagship product, is the only speech analytics solution that automatically and accurately discovers the content, context and purpose of an entire conversation and of every call, enabling companies to understand why customers call and how agents respond.  With this knowledge, CallMiner customers are able to significantly improve customer service, enhance agent quality, increase sales and impact marketing effectiveness. For more information, please contact CallMiner at (239) 689-6463 or visit www.callminer.com.About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Aspect, Unified IP, Unified Communications for the Contact Center and Aspect Software are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.# # # text/html 2008-04-15T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease4_15_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 15 April 2008 — Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center, has received Unified Communications Magazine’s 2007 Product of the Year Award for Aspect Unified IP,  an all-in-one, IT-ready solution that powers the company’s Unified Communications for the Contact Center strategy. Aspect Unified IP unites full-featured automatic call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, Internet contact, workflow management, multichannel recording and quality management applications in a single software platform.“Aspect Software believes that organizations of all shapes and sizes need a unified communications strategy that takes the front lines of customer contact into account,” said Mike Sheridan, senior vice president of strategy and marketing, Aspect Software. “In fact, the contact center should be the starting point for any organization’s unified communications strategy. The Aspect unified approach for helping companies implement a unified communications strategy is being validated with the Product of the Year Award for the value and benefits that it can bring to companies and their customers.” The 2007 Unified Communications Product of the Year Awards distinguish those companies that have developed ground-breaking advancements in UC technologies in the past year. Aspect Unified IP was recognized for delivering all the capabilities to extend the contact center into the enterprise, helping organizations reduce the time it takes to get calls to knowledge workers, to record those calls for quality of service, and provide reports to gauge the success of each interaction.Aspect Software supports unified communications for the contact center strategies with current versions of Aspect Unified IP, a comprehensive session initiation protocol (SIP)-based voice over IP (VoIP) unified contact center solution, and PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first complete contact center optimization suite. The company will also release new versions of Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge to deliver interoperability with unified communications software products including Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 to enhance collaboration between the enterprise and the contact center. “Aspect Software has proven it is committed to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace.  Unified Communications is pleased to grant a 2007 Product of the Year Award to Aspect Unified IP,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC President and Editor-in-Chief of Unified Communications Magazine. “We’re proud to honor the company’s hard work and accomplishments and look forward to more innovative solutions from Aspect Software in the future.”The recognition from Unified Communications Magazine came the same week that Aspect Software and Microsoft announced a global strategic alliance to bring unified communications (UC) to the contact center.For more information on Unified Communications for the Contact Center, visit www.aspectcometogether.com. For more information on the Aspect-Microsoft alliance, please visit http://www.aspect.com/About/OurPartners/Microsoft.About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100. For more information, visit www.Aspect.com. #  #  # Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, Unified Communications for the Contact Center™ and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-04-10T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease4_10_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 10 April 2008— The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect Software, the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center, today announced that its customer, Adelina Petrov, director of sales and operations analysis at International Cruise & Excursions (ICE), has won the 2008 Workforce Management Professional of the Year Award from the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP). Petrov won the award for successful workforce planning and the implementation of PerformanceEdge™ workforce management capabilities.The Workforce Management Professional of the Year Award recognizes a workforce management professional who has shown outstanding leadership in the industry. Petrov received the honor at the 2008 SWPP Annual Conference on March 27, 2008 in Nashville, Tenn.Petrov made it a top priority to educate the business and financial decision makers at ICE on the value of workforce management strategies and tools, detailing how measuring and improving workforce metrics would translate into reduced costs and increased revenue. Her efforts resulted in the implementation of Aspect® eWorkforce Management™ with its Analyze II performance management package, enabling the company to improve productivity and save $2.5 million dollars in the first year.“PerformanceEdge has received several industry awards, yet it is an even greater pleasure to see our customer praised by the industry for having the foresight to recognize that a robust workforce management tool and a solid performance optimization strategy are necessary to achieve higher revenue, lower costs, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction,” said Bob Kelly, vice president, PerformanceEdge Group at Aspect Software. “Advanced forecasting, scheduling as well as agent empowerment and performance management are critical to every contact center’s optimization strategy. Adelina and the ICE contact center demonstrate that this strategy works and results in improved business results with an excellent return on investment.”About SWPPThe Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) is an organization devoted to facilitating education and networking opportunities among workforce planners across all industries. Membership in SWPP is available to all workforce planning professionals and other interested parties from consulting and vendor organizations. Both individual memberships and corporate membership options are available, with full benefits and costs outlined on the organization’s website at www.swpp.org.About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately. Inbound, outbound and blended contact centers can now more easily control costs, enhance service levels, align performance with strategic goals, and extend those benefits into the enterprise. For more information, visit www.performanceedgesuite.com.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge, eWorkforce Management and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-04-08T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease4_8_08 Fort Myers, Fla. and Chelmsford, Mass. – April 8, 2008 – CallMiner, the leader in advanced speech analytics, and the PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect Software, the world’s largest company focused solely on unified communications for the contact center, have been chosen by Daimler Financial Services Americas to monitor the quality, content, context, intention and outcome of  contact center conversations. Implementation is scheduled to begin mid-Q2 2008 with an estimated go-live date of mid-Q3 2008.Daimler Financial Services’ Mercedes-Benz Financial business unit provides financing for Mercedes-Benz dealers and their customers. In the U.S. trucking industry, its Daimler Truck Financial finances commercial vehicles including Freightliner, Sterling and Western Star for dealers and their customers.“We chose CallMiner and Aspect® Quality Management™ because their solutions delivered the best method of improving the result of every contact center conversation,” said Wes Bumgarner, collections and customer service manager of Daimler Financial Services Americas.“This intelligence will enable us to operate more efficiently across all aspects of our business while maximizing opportunities to increase revenues,” said Paul Morack of ITM and Telecommunications at Daimler Financial Services Americas.CallMiner Eureka! provides sophisticated speech analytics and the Aspect Quality Management piece of PerformanceEdge provides Daimler Financial Services with 100 percent call recording, quality monitoring and workforce coaching capabilities. Together, the platform allows Daimler Financial Services to accurately capture and analyze every conversation between its contact center agents and customers, enabling Daimler Financial Services to decrease collections write-offs and ensure agent compliance with scripted language for liability purposes.“Speech analytics coupled with quality management applications can bring real and measurable value to Daimler Financial Services,” said Jeff Gallino, CallMiner CTO, chairman and co-founder. “The goal of implementing CallMiner Eureka! and Aspect’s PerformanceEdge is to help the company to gain productivity improvements.”“We are providing Daimler Financial Services with the best possible applications to record, analyze and evaluate agent performance and capture real-time customer feedback, giving them insight to deliver a repeatable, best-in-class experience every time,” said Brian Derr, vice president of quality management solutions for Aspect Software. About Daimler Financial Services Americas (DFSA USA LLC)Daimler Financial Services Americas (DFSA USA LLC) provides brand-specific financing for Mercedes-Benz automotive dealers’ inventories and their retail customers, and conducts business in the United States luxury car market as Mercedes-Benz Financial. In the U.S. trucking industry, Daimler Financial Services Americas conducts business as Daimler Truck Financial and finances Daimler commercial vehicle products such as Freightliner, Sterling and Western Star for dealers and their customers in the fleet, vocational, municipal and owner/operator segments. Daimler Financial Services Americas serves as the headquarters for operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, and has approximately 1,600 employees. Daimler Financial Services Americas is a company of the Daimler Financial Services Group, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, which operates in nearly 40 countries with an employee base of close to 6,800.  Daimler Financial Services is one of the leading financial services organizations worldwide. About CallMinerCallMiner is the leader in advanced speech analytics solutions.  CallMiner Eureka!, the company’s flagship product, is the only speech analytics solution that automatically and accurately discovers the content, context and purpose of the entire conversation and of every call, enabling companies to understand why customers call and how agents respond.  With this knowledge CallMiner customers are able to significantly improve customer service, enhance agent quality, increase sales and impact marketing effectiveness.  CallMiner, founded in 2002, is headquartered in Southwest Florida with leading institutional investors that include Inflexion Partners, Intersouth Partners, Sigma Partners, Village Ventures, and In-Q-Tel.  For more information, please contact CallMiner at (239) 689-6463 or visit www.callminer.com.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100. For more information, visit www.Aspect.com.Aspect, Aspect Quality Management and Aspect Software are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. # # # text/html 2008-03-18T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease3_18_08 ORLANDO, Fla. — March 18, 2008 — Today at the VoiceCon Orlando 2008 conference, Microsoft Corp. and Aspect Software Inc., a leading contact center company, announced a multiyear strategic alliance to help deliver unified communications (UC) to contact centers around the world. Aspect will design its Aspect® Unified IP™ contact center solution to interoperate with Microsoft's platform for software-powered voice and unified communications and will offer it as the leading option to new and existing customers. Microsoft is making an equity investment in Aspect to accelerate the development and adoption of the new solutions and services.“Our alliance and the resulting joint solutions are designed to enhance sales, service and support capabilities for organizations of all types and sizes, across many industries. We strongly believe that the combination of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Aspect Unified IP will redefine the way companies interact with their customers,” said Jim Foy, president and CEO of Aspect. “With this alliance and its equity investment, Microsoft recognizes Aspect Unified IP as an ideal fit with its software-powered voice platform.”"A key pillar of Microsoft’s unified communications vision is improving access to the people and information you need to do your job better and more quickly, and, with Aspect, we aim to make this vision a reality for contact centers,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. “Contact centers demand reliable and flexible communications solutions. The fact that Aspect, a noted leader, is choosing to optimize its next-generation solution for Microsoft UC is tremendous validation of the strengths of our unified communications and voice over Internet protocol platform, and for the momentum behind software-powered voice.”Aspect will begin development of the optimized solutions immediately. This year, Aspect plans to release a new version of its .NET-based Aspect Unified IP product, which delivers interoperability with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and which will include a powerful ask-an-expert capability using instant messaging and presence technology in Office Communications Server 2007. Aspect is designing this feature to enable contact center agents to find and consult with experts anywhere in a company to resolve inquiries in a single interaction.Aspect plans to extend the interoperability of its Unified IP with Office Communications Server to include software-powered voice in subsequent releases. This solution is being designed to enable contact centers to seamlessly escalate customer interactions to different channels — phone, instant messaging, e-mail or conferencing — while addressing reliability, scalability and reporting needs.“The connection between contact center technology and unified communications has not, to date, been at the center of the conversation,” said Sheila McGee-Smith, president and principal analyst, McGee-Smith Analytics. “The decision of Microsoft and Aspect to create this strategic alliance clearly demonstrates that the contact center plays an integral role in the evolution of software in the enterprise. Companies may now choose to make a choice to easily bring Microsoft UC into both their contact center and their enterprise, realizing the benefits of first call resolution and other metrics that a uniform UC strategy can deliver.”As part of the agreement, Aspect will also build a professional services and systems integration practice for Microsoft’s unified communications software. Aspect will help customers deploy, customize and manage Office Communications Server in its contact centers and throughout its organizations for software-powered voice, instant messaging, presence and conferencing.Aspect Software is majority owned by Golden Gate Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm with $9 billion of capital under management.About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100. For more information, visit www.Aspect.com.About MicrosoftFounded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.#   #   #Aspect, Aspect Unified IP and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2008-03-10T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/InTheNews3_10_08 Chelmsford, Mass., 10 March 2008 - Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced a corporate strategy to educate the market on the critical role the contact center must play in the development of an organization’s overall unified communications strategy.  The company’s all-in-one, IT-ready Aspect® Unified IPTM and PerformanceEdgeTM solutions will help power unified communications for the contact center.  A series of upcoming product enhancements designed to ensure seamless interoperability between Aspect Software solutions and unified communications applications will further support this initiative.Unified communications for the contact center streamlines and enhances customer-facing business processes with complete visibility and control – and enables businesses to seamlessly extend those processes beyond the traditional boundaries of the contact center to reach knowledge workers or subject matter experts in the enterprise in order to enhance collaboration.It is important for organizations to include the contact center as part of their broader unified communications strategy because customers can be a key beneficiary of the value that unified communications brings,” said Bern Elliot, research vice president at Gartner. “To succeed, enterprises should leverage contact center technology broadly into their enterprise, and similarly contact centers should understand how to leverage enterprise UC technology into their operations.”A recent independent survey of contact center managers and agents1 shows that 10 percent of all customer interactions must be taken outside the traditional boundaries of the contact center and into the enterprise to be properly addressed.“When we did the math on this, we were startled. Aspect customers manage about 125 million interactions a day, which means they have to reach into the enterprise an average 12.5 million times. Every day,” said Mike Sheridan, senior vice president of strategy at Aspect Software. “When you start to multiply that across all of the companies and contact centers out there, the numbers get completely out of hand. And, because the interactions are going outside the contact center, it is significantly more challenging to safeguard a satisfactory customer experience and ultimately produce a positive business result. But we know there’s a better way. And that’s why Aspect is committed to educating the market on the value of unified communications for the contact center.”Aspect Software provides all-in-one, IT-ready solutions that reduce complexity, lower costs and increase business agility by consolidating all contact center functionality into standards-based software that is easily deployed, managed and propagated throughout the enterprise. This gives both business and IT managers optimal choice of technology and greater control to gain improved visibility into the performance of the organization’s customer service, collections or sales processes."Aspect believes that organizations of all shapes and sizes need a unified communications strategy that takes the front lines of customer contact into account,” added Sheridan. “The contact center already has the experience, applications and processes needed to reduce the amount of time it takes to get calls to knowledge workers, to record those calls for quality of service and provide reports to track how well the whole process is working. Without the contact center insight, organizations are at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to crafting and executing a unified communications strategy, and most importantly, delivering the experience today’s consumer demands and deserves."Aspect will support its unified communications for the contact center strategy with current versions of Aspect Unified IP, a comprehensive session initiation protocol (SIP)-based voice over IP (VoIP) unified contact center solution and PerformanceEdge, the industry’s first contact center optimization suite.  The company will also release new versions of those products to deliver interoperability with unified communications software products to enhance collaboration between the enterprise and the contact center.Subsequent releases of Aspect Unified IP will enable organizations to route interactions to enterprise experts based on presence and willingness, generate enterprise-level reports of these interactions, and utilize workforce management to forecast expert demand.“Aspect is the only company that offers contact centers a true unified approach to managing all of their customer interactions using a single software platform. Our customers have reported that Aspect unified solutions have helped decrease staffing expenses up to 40 percent and improve customer retention up to 20 percent,” said Sheridan. “This unified approach is absolutely the gateway to executing a successful unified communications strategy because it allows contact centers to seamlessly and easily extend routing rules, reports and quality assurance out to the enterprise. No other company can bring the contact center and the enterprise together the way our solutions can.”In addition to upcoming product releases, the company will support its unified communications launch with marketing campaigns, its Contact Center: Unplugged blog, an updated website, and educational tools like white papers, web seminars and training.  For more information on unified communications for the contact center, a white paper is available, “Unified Communications…Keeping the Customer in the Equation” or please visit www.aspectcometogether.com.1Source: An Evaluative Report of the Knowledge Worker’s Role in the Contact Center, Conducted by Leo J. Shapiro and Associates for Aspect Software, December 14, 2007About Aspect Software Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world's largest company focused solely on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready solutions help two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100 and a variety of small and medium enterprises to communications-enable their customer service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, Aspect Unified IP, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-03-04T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease3_4_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 4 March 2008 — Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced that Keith Dawson, senior analyst for Frost & Sullivan, and Scott Ginsberg, author and publisher, will both deliver keynote addresses at its Aspect Customer Experience (ACE) 2008.  ACE, taking place at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia 9-12 March 2008, is hosted by Aspect Software and the Aspect Software User Group Association (ASUGA).ACE has become a leading international forum to discuss strategies for bringing positive change to the contact center, and addresses topics that affect an organization’s collections, customer service, and sales and telemarketing operations on a daily basis. The annual event attracts executives from small, medium and large enterprises alike seeking ways to balance customers’ demands with the realities of the bottom line, reduce complexity, and maximize their contact center investments. “The Aspect Customer Experience is an ideal environment for people to learn from their colleagues’ challenges and successes, exchange innovative ideas with their peers, and collaborate with industry experts,” said Melody Cespedes, president, ASUGA board. “We are honored to have Scott Ginsberg and Keith Dawson delivering the keynote addresses at this year’s event.  They will provide insight into business success strategies relating to contact centers, and will set the stage for a terrific conference.”Keith Dawson is a senior analyst for Frost & Sullivan and an authority on call centers and the management of customer care technology.  Mr. Dawson has written thousands of articles and several definitive books, including the Call Center Handbook.  Formerly an editor for Call Center Magazine, Mr. Dawson today focuses on the customer experience: how it is measured and whether companies are using the contact center to manage that experience to their advantage. Mr. Dawson will address unified communications trends and strategies for the contact center and will share his insight on the overall contact center market.Scott Ginsberg, “The Authority on Approachability,” carries the distinction of being the only person in the world who wears a nametag 24x7. He is the author of seven business books, publisher of thousands of articles, creator of award-winning Web sites and blogs, and has been inducted into “Ripley’s Believe it Or Not!” The ACE 2008 conference will feature breakout sessions with more than 130 Aspect Software-, customer-, and consultant-led sessions in English and Spanish. Attendees will learn best practices from other users on key contact center topics, such as managing at-home agents to improve customer service and agent morale, incorporating the contact center in a unified communications strategy, applying performance optimization solutions to increase service levels and create consistent customer experiences, and moving to an IP contact center to leverage the benefits of increased flexibility. Attendees will also learn about the latest product offerings from Aspect Software and how they can use those products to meet their strategic customer contact objectives.  Roundtable discussions will allow conference attendees to exchange ideas on contact center best practices. ACE 2008 is being sponsored by the following leading companies:3ComAudioCodesBay Bridge Decision TechnologiesCallMinerContact Center WorldIQ ServicesIntuit Consulting ServicesMicrosoftNuanceOpenSpan, Inc.OracleSociety of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP)Softcom TechnologiesSymon CommunicationsTo learn more about the ACE 2008 conference, or to register to attend, please visit www.aspect.com/go/ACE.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching an eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com .#  #  # Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2008-02-21T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease2_21_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 21 February 2008 — Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, and its PerformanceEdge Group, a dedicated performance optimization resource, today announced that Affinity Group, Inc., the nation’s largest provider of outdoor recreation clubs, media and events, has improved call handling and the member experience it delivers through the use of Aspect Software solutions. The company is using Aspect Unified IP and the PerformanceEdge workforce management capability in its contact center.Based in Ventura, Calif., Affinity is focused on delivering the optimal recreation experience by targeting and segmenting its members into specialty niches. The company offers a broad portfolio of consumer brands, products and services for its members, including Affinity Media, Affinity Clubs, Affinity Events and Affinity Ventures.Affinity has been utilizing the full capabilities of Aspect Unified IP, as well as the forecasting and scheduling features of Aspect® eWorkforce Management™, to handle inbound and outbound member service and sales interactions in its 80-seat Denver, Colo. contact center. Agents use Aspect Unified IP to manage incoming calls regarding membership renewals, new member acquisition, change of address information, roadside assistance, and for help in travel planning. Affinity leverages the outbound dialer and voice portal functionality of Aspect Unified IP for member awareness campaigns, sales calls, and to collect credit card information for automatic renewals.In addition, Affinity’s contact center supervisors use Aspect eWorkforce Management to schedule skilled agents during peak call times, all of which has led to improved call handling, lower call abandonment, higher service levels, increased revenue and enhanced member satisfaction.  The contact center also has the Perform and Empower enhancement packages to give agents greater control over their schedules to improve morale and provide supervisors with greater insight into overall agent performance.“Before we began to leverage the rich capabilities of Aspect Unified IP, we had extremely high handle times. Agents were receiving calls they were not trained to handle, plus we couldn’t get to all of the calls that were coming in and consequently we had very high abandon rates,” said Scott Willey, vice president Affinity Clubs, Customer Relationship Center. “Now, we’ve changed the way we train our agents giving them more tools and greater skill sets, and with the skills-based routing available from Aspect Unified IP, we can get the calls to the next available agent with the right skills, resulting in drastically reduced hold times and therefore less abandonment.”Added Willey, “In fact, I would attribute our higher revenue to the advanced call blending capabilities of Aspect Unified IP. The blending functionality enables our knowledgeable contact center agents to resolve the call in less time. As a result, we have cut our call handle time significantly, and we’ve also reduced member call-backs quite a bit because their inquiries are now being routed to agents that have the skills to meet their needs.”Aspect Unified IP enables Affinity to have incoming calls from members routed to agents based on skill and availability.  Agents also receive a whisper from their headset with basic caller information before the agent screen is populated with the full customer history, enabling the agents to mentally prepare for the call seconds before it is received. Affinity records 100 percent of all calls for quality monitoring purposes, and uses the speech self-service functionality for post-call customer surveys to receive feedback on satisfaction directly from the member. By taking advantage of the full functionality that Aspect Unified IP offers and the scheduling capabilities of Aspect eWorkforce Management, the company has seen significant tangible results, including:   • 80/20 service level goal (80 percent of calls answered in 20 seconds) increased by 19.25 percent over 2006   • Abandoned calls are down from 2005 by more than 68 percent   • Handle time is down an average of 30 seconds per call compared with 2006   • Total Revenue is up 6.6 percent over 2006“I’ve actually worked with Aspect products for a long time, and I believe the products are very solid,” Willey said. “Aspect Unified IP is a single source of all-encompassing capabilities, and it is robust enough that I don’t have to add on capabilities constantly. From a technology perspective, one of the best things about Aspect Software is having one vendor for all our contact center needs.”“As a leader in recreation and outdoor leisure, Affinity understands the importance of enhancing the customer experience, and has clearly put its members first with its contact center operations,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of product management at Aspect Software. “Successful companies like Affinity are seeing the value in partnering with one vendor who can provide the complete breadth of contact center applications in a single platform, helping them form solid customer-company relationships. We expect Affinity to build on this momentum into 2008 and beyond, and continue to see higher revenue, productivity, and customer satisfaction.” About AffinityAffinity, www.affinitygroup.com, is the nation’s largest provider of outdoor clubs, media and events that service the safety, security, comfort and convenience needs of the North American recreational vehicle (RV) and outdoor enthusiast market. By providing information, insights, and resources, the company champions the fun, freedom, and adventure of recreation in motion. The company works to enhance its customers’ recreational experiences and build the communities that share and promote their fun and adventurous lifestyles.Affinity is organized into four different business units – Affinity Media, Affinity Clubs, Affinity Events and Affinity Ventures. Their corporate headquarters are located in Ventura, Calif. Subsidiary operations and divisions can be found at multiple locations throughout the United States.About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals. For more information, visit www.performanceedgesuite.com.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite, combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  # Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, eWorkforce Management, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-02-13T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease2_13_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 13 February 2008 - The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect Software, the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced the general availability of expanded quality management features through PerformanceEdge™. Aspect Quality Management 2.8, part of the PerformanceEdge suite, offers a newly released add-on module, Customer Measured Quality 2.8, which provides users the built-in ability to email post-interaction Web-based surveys to customers and correlate feedback directly to that recorded interaction. This functionality allows contact centers to gather accurate and rapid feedback from their callers and to calibrate the results with quality scores pre-determined by supervisors.Aspect Quality Management 2.8 also supports Unicode character sets and is localized in German, including full language support, and user interface and document translation, and offers new integrations to third-party vendor automated call distribution (ACD) platforms such as Cisco® CallManager and Genesys, and a refreshed Apropos integration.“PerformanceEdge has helped us identify areas for agent training, and also recognize the agents that are providing outstanding customer service,” said Marian Leon, information central manager, National Association of Realtors. “The latest version of Aspect Quality Management and the Customer Measured Quality module will offer even greater capabilities for us to monitor and review agent calls, and we’re confident that it will help us improve our services and build customer satisfaction.”In addition, the latest release of Aspect Quality Management delivers:Increased security including the ability to stream audio/video upon playback and utilize user-based downloading permissionsEnhanced compliance capabilities such as “Do Not Record” exclusion rules for pre- and post-call evaluationAdvanced desktop client features such as customized screen capture of the active windows on an agent desktop or on multiple monitors“Our contact center customers around the world are looking for advanced quality management and recording capabilities to make their agents more effective and to deliver a positive customer experience,” said Brian Derr, vice president of quality management, PerformanceEdge Group. “Aspect Software is committed to enhancing the customer experience, and with the Customer Measured Quality module, companies are equipped with a sophisticated tool to determine areas for process improvement, with feedback directly from the customer. The Customer Measured Quality 2.8 module gives organizations like the National Association of Realtors a way to gain a better understanding of customer-company interactions.“With expanded internationalization features and increased integrations with other applications, the newest version of Aspect Quality Management 2.8 helps companies further pinpoint areas for training and agent development, and will enable our global customer base to rapidly and cost-effectively adapt in a competitive environment.”About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals. For more information, visit www.performanceedgesuite.com.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite, combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge, Quality Management, Unified IP and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2008-02-07T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease2_7_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 7 February 2008 — Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, has received INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine’s 2007 Product of the Year Award for Unified Command and ControlTM, a highly scalable solution that enables contact centers to centralize reporting, routing, administration and workflow management across as many as 40,000 agents at more than 40 contact centers.“Companies around the world are focusing on reducing complexity, lowering costs and increasing their business agility,” said Mike Sheridan, senior vice president of strategy and marketing for Aspect Software. “Unified Command and Control is a key component of our unified approach and helps organizations achieve these goals by simplifying the management and control of multiple contact centers and applications, regardless of whether they are based on session initiation protocol (SIP)-based voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) platforms or traditional voice platforms.”Sheridan continued, “Unified Command and Control is making virtualization a reality for our contact center customers that require greater control, flexibility and scalability, while also leveraging existing technology investments. We’re extremely pleased to have received this recognition from INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine, which underscores the value of the Aspect unified approach.”  Made generally available in November 2007, Unified Command and Control consolidates data from various contact center applications, eliminating areas of duplication and reducing operating costs associated with managing agent profiles.  The solution allows businesses to use one system to facilitate all agent moves, adds, and changes across sites, and enables local survivable nodes, ensuring business continuity during a local network failure or in the event of a disaster. Built on a service-oriented architecture (SOA), Unified Command and Control is extensible to similarly open standards-based products.“Aspect Software has proven they are committed to quality and excellence while addressing real needs in the marketplace.  INTERNET TELEPHONY is pleased to grant them a 2007 Product of the Year Award for Unified Command and Control,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC president and editor-in-chief of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.  “We’re proud to honor their hard work and accomplishments and look forward to more innovative solutions from Aspect Software in the future.”About Aspect Software Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite, combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, Unified Command and Control, Unified IP, Performance Edge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-02-05T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease2_5_2008 STOCKLEY PARK, London, 5 February 2008 - Aspect Software, Inc., the world's largest company solely focused on the contact centre, today announced that its Aspect® Unified IP™ product is a finalist in the ‘IP User Application of the Year’ category at the prestigious 2008 Network Computing Awards.  The award is particularly significant because it is voted for by UK end-user organisations rather than by a panel of judges. To reach the shortlist, Aspect Unified IP was nominated by many user organisations as their IP User Application of the Year. The category winner will be announced at the 2008 Network Computing Awards dinner at the Tower Hotel in London on 13 March 2008.“Aspect Software is completely committed to harnessing the power of IP and bringing it to customers through products such as Aspect Unified IP so they can improve performance, enhance agent productivity, reduce costs and deliver a better customer experience,” said David West, Vice President, Europe and Africa, Aspect Software.  “We are absolutely delighted that our UK-based Aspect Unified IP customers have chosen to nominate us for this award based on the value and benefits that our unified IP approach is bringing to their organisations.” Aspect Unified IP is a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) unified contact centre solution that provides automatic call distribution (ACD), predictive dialling, voice portal capabilities, Internet contact, workflow management, multichannel recording and quality management to help organisations achieve their customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business process goals. The release of Aspect Unified IP 6.5.1 and upcoming versions continues to provide enhancements in reliability and security, greater localisation features, and expanded communication options through SIP-enabled VoIP.The 2008 Network Computing Awards cover 23 separate categories from Network Infrastructure Product of the Year to Messaging Product of the Year to Network Project Product of the Year.  The event is managed by Network Computing, the longest running publication in the UK aimed specifically at those managing networks across all industry sectors.  The magazine addresses the key issues faced by network managers as they try to maintain secure, efficient networks whilst running an increasing numbers of applications. More details can be found at: www.networkcomputing.co.ukAbout Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact centre industry and is now the world's largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centres around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialling, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow. PerformanceEdge™, the industry's first fully synchronised contact centre optimisation suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company's trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialling, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, Performance Edge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.#  #  #  text/html 2008-01-30T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease1_30_07 Hoofddorp (The Netherlands), 30 January 2008  — Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced Arvato Services, a leading global third-party customer service outsourcing provider, is leveraging 400 seats of Uniphi Connect with its Aspect® CallCenter® ACDs to create a virtual SIP based-Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) contact center to enhance its customer service efforts. Arvato is one of the first companies in Belgium and the Netherlands to roll out a large-scale IP contact center initiative.Arvato Services provides customer service and other customer interaction outsourcing services for large enterprises, such as the State Lottery, ABN AMRO and Oxxio. Arvato also offers data management capabilities, printed paper production, and stock management and logistics.Arvato wanted to introduce VoIP for several reasons, including to improve its operational excellence and to enable the contact center to rapidly scale and adapt as customer and business needs change.“When the state lottery has its drawing, there is a sharp increase in customer contacts which means Arvato has to be prepared,” said David West, Senior VP International Sales EMEA, Aspect Software.  “With SIP-based VoIP and the virtual contact center capabilities that Aspect provides, Arvato is able to have the appropriate resources available to manage those contacts and maintain a consistent level of service.” Uniphi Connect is a hybrid solution that enables users to deploy both Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and Internet Protocol (IP)-based agents on a single platform. The solution works in conjunction with Aspect CallCenter ACD, a high-volume call routing application, and enables Arvato to create a virtual contact center that is integrated with its central office management systems. In addition, the internal IT support desk staffs across three offices in Antwerp, Abcoude and Venlo are connected by VoIP.Following a lengthy research process, Arvato selected Uniphi Connect because of the superiority of the Aspect Software solutions. Leon van Adrichem, CTO at Arvato Services Benelux, states, "Aspect CallCenter ACD is proven technology with extremely high reliability and virtually one hundred percent uptime. Additionally, Aspect is our supplier for other solutions, so this was a natural progression. Our investment remains protected and the implementation time was considerably shortened as Aspect already knows us. It has gone flawlessly”With the new implementation, Arvato has already seen a number of benefits including:1. Significant savings on telephony costs, which keeps the price per user low2. Minimum time to execution (1 hour/25 seats) at minimal costs3. Increased flexibility to add or decrease agent seats on demand4. Ability to leverage remote services (in-house and externally) providing enhanced overflow to external contact centers as needed5. Disaster recovery options by using the contact center in Antwerp as a backup centre for Venlo, and vice-versa6. Offshore services being ready for application7. No extra investments in additional hard and softwareAdded Van Adrichem, “This solution also helps Arvato offer our contact center capabilities as a hosted service, meaning third parties are able to offer their services by building upon our infrastructure. This is an important step forward in our strategy to be an innovative market leader in the field of complex solutions in the services industry.”Markus Trost, CEO Arvato Services Benelux concludes: “With the implementation of this new technology we can offer our customers a state of the art solution. In the chain of communication between companies and customers Arvato Customer Services is playing a growing central role. Outsourcing of Customer Services is increasing, even to a larger extent of complexity. There is also a strong tendency in the market to professionalize the customer contact even more, from a commercial point of view and to use this information as a source of information in order to optimize the business processes. Customer Services is a strategic activity for Arvato with considerable growth potential that link up perfectly to our other activities.”  About Arvato ServicesArvato Services is a subsidiary of arvato AG, the internationally networked media service provider of Bertelsmann AG. Arvato Services is a leading global third-party outsourcing provider offering its clients customized end-to-end business solutions at every stage in the value chain, from either the pre-sales, sales or post-sales lifecycle. On the demand-side, these services include Web-based sales and order management and processes through call centers and online. On the supply-side, services include procurement, warehousing, assembly, repair and distribution. Clients are leading companies in the automotive, telecommunications, information technology, media, financial services, and healthcare and travel industries. Arvato Services employs more than 27,000 staff at more than 40 locations worldwide. For more information about Arvato Services, visit http://www.arvato.com.About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching an eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  #  text/html 2008-01-09T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease1_09_08 Amsterdam, 9 January 2008 - The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect Software, the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced its customer, ANWB (Royal Dutch’s Roadside Assistance Service), is implementing the workforce management capabilities of PerformanceEdge™ in its two contact centers. ANWB customers rely heavily on the company’s contact centers for many areas including emergencies, foreign support, commercial issues, publishing, travel operations, legal advice and insurance.   The workforce management capability of PerformanceEdge will enable ANWB to better plan and manage the performance of its inbound, blended and outbound staff. After an extensive independent evaluation to determine which workforce management product on the market would best suit the company, ANWB chose Aspect eWorkforce Management from PerformanceEdge because of the Aspect Software reputation, the product’s multichannel and multilingual capabilities, its ability to enable ANWB to improve the efficiency and productivity of its contact center employees, and to meet the business’s needs in the most flexible way. “ANWB has been using Aspect Software products in its contact centers for quite some time and we are pleased they have chosen to expand their capabilities with us,” said David West, SVP Europe and Africa from Aspect Software. “The workforce management functionality of PerformanceEdge plays a key role in ANWB’s initiative to streamline processes and optimize people and other resources at its in-country contact centres and its emergency centre.” The new ANWB emergency centre has been established in two locations to form one virtual integrated organization that includes: The Assen operation - fields all emergency aid questions, most of which are handled via telephone, some by fax, mail and, in the future, they will also be handled over the Web.The Hague operation - provides vehicle assistance (VHV) and person assistance (PHV). Requests and details are centrally controlled and fulfilled by internal resources or local partner companies. Aspect® eWorkforce Management™ will be administered from both locations by five planning and forecasting specialists and approximately 25 supervisors. In addition, all employees will be able to access the system to control their own schedule preferences. The implementation, being executed by Newtel Essence, a wholly owned subsidiary of KPN, is expected to be complete in the first trimester of 2008. PerformanceEdge combines workforce management, performance management, quality management, and campaign management, as well as coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals. About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching an eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com . # # #Aspect, PerformanceEdge, eWorkforce Management and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2008-01-08T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease1_08_08 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 8 January 2008— The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect Software, the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced that PerformanceEdge™ has received the 2007 Product of the Year Award from Customer Interaction Solutions magazine.  PerformanceEdge is being recognized for the technological advancements, innovative features and business benefits it contributes to the contact center industry.Introduced in September 2007, PerformanceEdge is the industry’s first contact center performance optimization suite that combines the number one workforce, performance and campaign management applications with next generation recording and quality management and integrated coaching and eLearning, enabling organizations to respond to changing business conditions.  The capabilities delivered by PerformanceEdge give managers a holistic view of the contact center, enabling them to consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals.“Contact centers are becoming competitive differentiators for their companies rather than just necessary cost centers. This shift coupled with increasingly demanding consumers is putting increasing pressure on contact center managers to maximize their agents’ performance and to improve their operations,” said Robert Kelly, vice president, PerformanceEdge Group.  “Being recognized by industry organizations such as Customer Interaction Solutions underscores that with PerformanceEdge, Aspect Software is clearly delivering an important solution that will help contact center managers synchronize people, applications, and processes to contribute real value to their organization. It’s great to have our efforts recognized.”“Aspect Software has proven they are committed to quality and excellence in solutions that benefit the contact center and the overall customer experience, as well as ROI for the companies that use them.  I am pleased to honor their hard work and accomplishments and look forward to more innovative solutions from Aspect Software in the future,” said Nadji Tehrani, Executive Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Customer Interaction Solutions.About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge™ combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals. For more information, visit www.performanceedgesuite.com.About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Note:  Aspect, PerformanceEdge, Unified IP, and Aspect Software are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or trade names are the property of their respective owners.#  #  # text/html 2007-12-18T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease12_18_07 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 18 December 2007 - Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced that on 27 December 2007, Aspect® Unified IP™ 6.5.1 will be generally available. This latest version of the product includes localization for German, Japanese, Colombian Spanish, Portuguese and Korean, bringing all of the value of Aspect Unified IP to many additional critical global contact center markets. In the first quarter of 2008, Aspect Unified IP 6.5.1 users will also be able to leverage the real-time reporting capabilities ofUnified Command and Control™ for consolidated real-time reporting across multiple sites and applications through an intuitive, graphical display.As part of this new release, Aspect Unified IP 6.5.1 leverages server virtualization through the use of VMware, helping users to take advantage of smaller physical footprints and providing faster time to market.  The product also includes a new manual answer feature, required by the German contact center industry and in demand around the world, that will empower agents to take a call when they choose.“Aspect Software uses Aspect Unified IP in all of our worldwide contact centers to manage interactions with our customers and partners,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of product management, Aspect Software. “We implemented Aspect Unified IP 6.5.1 in our European contact center, and the results were excellent. It continues to reduce complexity in managing our multiple contact center sites around the world and we’re already seeing higher productivity and reduced costs.”In addition to new localization, virtualization and manual answer capabilities, Aspect Unified IP 6.5.1 also provides:An Agent-on-Demand feature that enables a contact center to engage a remote agent whenever needed. This feature will help companies save on long-distance and IP bandwidth costs, while still having access to at-home or branch agents when call volumes increase.A web services interface with a complete Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Software Developer’s Kit. This powerful kit allows for a wide variety of custom integrations to be created, giving contact centers an integrated agent desktop and the flexibility to customize how applications interoperate with Aspect Unified IP. “As 2007 draws to a close, we are very excited about the new capabilities and direction for Aspect Unified IP,” Hyppolite adds. “This release will benefit our worldwide customer base and any organization that is looking to take advantage of a unified approach. With the improved localization features, virtualization capabilities, high availability and web services interfaces for integrations, our contact center customers will have greater flexibility to better meet the needs of their customers.”Aspect Unified IP is a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) unified contact center solution that provides automatic call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal capabilities, Internet contact, workflow management, multichannel recording and quality management to help organizations achieve their customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business process goals. The release of Aspect Unified IP 6.5.1 and upcoming versions continues to provide enhancements in reliability and security, greater localization features, and expanded communication options through SIP-enabled VoIP.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, Unified Command and Control and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2007-12-04T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease12_4_07 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 4 December 2007 - Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, today announced the general availability of Unified Command and Control™, a highly scalable solution that enables contact centers to centralize reporting, routing, administration and workflow management in a single console, resulting in reduced complexity, increased productivity and the ability to deliver an improved customer experience. Unified Command and Control helps manage as many as 40 different nodes for as many as 40,000 agents, either within a single site or across multiple contact center locations.Unified Command and Control, a key component of the Aspect Software unified approach, opens the door for expanded virtualization by increasing an organization’s ability to manage and control multiple contact centers and applications. It enables contact centers to leverage existing investments in Aspect Software solutions while also seamlessly moving to new session initiation protocol (SIP)-based voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) platforms. Since Unified Command and Control was built upon a service-oriented architecture (SOA), it enables third-parties or Aspect Software partners to build their own adapters into their own products or other, similarly open, products in the future.“With Unified Command and Control, we have access to consolidated, detailed information on our four contact centers and their performance as things happen,” said Mark Good, vice president of information systems, LCA-Vision, Inc. “Having synchronized information that is easy to manage helps us make decisions and take a more active approach to planning our customer care initiatives for the future. Unified Command and Control gives us the flexibility and control we need to successfully manage our multisite operations.”This initial release of Unified Command and Control provides administration, reporting, and routing for Aspect® CallCenter® ACD 9.3 and the workforce management capability of PerformanceEdge™, Aspect® eWorkforce Management™ 7.1. Upcoming versions of Unified Command and Control will offer enhanced administration, routing and workflow capabilities targeted toward other Aspect Software products, including Aspect® Spectrum® ACD, Aspect® Unified IP™, and the quality and performance management capabilities of PerformanceEdge.Aspect CallCenter ACD 9.3 delivers improved operating efficiency, reliability, scalability and security and reduces costs through enhanced features and tight integration with Unified Command and Control for enterprise administration.  Important new Aspect CallCenter ACD 9.3 capabilities include expanded use of SIP/VoIP for inter-site connectivity, new redundant and expanded voice system options, significantly increased Call Control Table and Application limits, and enhanced password flexibility and complexity.  Centralized management across multiple systems, including agent groups, trunk groups, and supervisor teams, can be copied between multiple Aspect CallCenter ACD 9.3 systems.Through Unified Command and Control, any changes in agent data and staffing information can be automatically sent to Aspect eWorkforce Management 7.1.   As an enterprise application, Aspect eWorkforce Management has unifying capabilities for its multisite customers, offering centralized management of agents regardless of their physical location. Unified Command and Control extends this unification of agent information, not only across multiple contact center locations, but also across disparate agent resource management applications including workforce management, routing platforms, quality, and performance management.By consolidating data from various contact center applications, Unified Command and Control enables businesses to eliminate areas of duplication and reduce operating costs associated with managing agent profiles. Unified Command and Control lets them use one system to facilitate all agent moves, adds, and changes across sites, and enables local survivable nodes, ensuring business continuity during a local network failure or in the event of a disaster.“Our customers are continuously looking for avenues to gain greater control and improve scalability and workloads across the enterprise,” said Gary Barnett, chief technology officer and executive vice president, Aspect Software. “Unified Command and Control is delivering these virtualization capabilities and will change the way companies manage their contact center operations. From large, multi-national organizations with several contact centers around the globe, to small and mid-size companies with virtual remote agents, multiple ACDs and performance optimization products, our customers are seeing the benefits of SIP-based, VoIP-enabled solutions to gain a competitive advantage.”PodcastsWhat Is Unified Command and Control™?The Benefits of Unified Command and Control™About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, CallCenter ACD, eWorkforce Management, Spectrum ACD, Unified IP, Unified Command and Control, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2007-11-15T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease11_15_07 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 15 November 2007 – Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center, announced today it has once again been ranked as the leading provider of workforce management applications in North America, according to Saddletree Research . Aspect has 24.5 percent share of the market based on its PerformanceEdge™ workforce management product line revenue, which is almost 40 percent more than the next highest vendor at 17.8 percent.According to the Saddletree report, “Aspect has emerged with a company vision that gives every indication it will continue to hone its leading edge for many years to come.”“Aspect continues to demonstrate solid market leadership. It has introduced a workforce optimization strategy that builds on the momentum generated by its market-leading workforce management solution, which will help the company continue to grow market share,” said Paul Stockford, president and chief analyst, Saddletree Research.  “This leadership comes from solid insight into what contact centers need to effectively control costs, enhance service levels and align performance to support strategic goals.  Looking at workforce management from a larger performance optimization perspective is what is helping differentiate Aspect from the other vendors.”Over the next five years, Saddletree expects the North American Call Center Workforce Management market to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.8 percent.“Aspect continues to lead the market because our workforce management capabilities, as part of a true synchronized performance optimization offering, are exactly what companies need to plan, manage and optimize the productivity and effectiveness of contact center resources to best meet customers’ demands,” said Bob Kelly, vice president of the PerformanceEdge Group at Aspect Software. “By having the right agents with the right skills in the right place at the right time, contact center managers can maximize the performance of their inbound, blended and outbound staff resources and that is what can make the difference between success and failure in these competitive times.”The workforce management capabilities of PerformanceEdge enable organizations to plan and manage the utilization of inbound, blended and outbound staff.  PerformanceEdge combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically interoperate to help contact center managers consider everything and act immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals.About Saddletree ResearchSaddletree Research provides communications industry research, including analysis of market trends, issues, technologies, and companies in the call center, multi-channel contact center, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), communications convergence and emerging communications markets.About Aspect Software  Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite, combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2007-11-13T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease11_13_07 CHELMSFORD, Mass. – 13 November 2007 – Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact center industry, today announced it has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant in all three regions analyzed by Gartner Inc. for its 2007 Contact Center Infrastructure Magic Quadrant reports, which includes North America1, EMEA2 and Asia Pacific.3According to Gartner, “leaders are high-viability vendors with broad portfolios, significant market share, broad geographic coverage, a clear vision for how contact center needs will evolve and a proven track record for delivering contact center products.  They are well-positioned with their current product portfolio and are likely to continue to deliver leading products. Leaders do not necessarily offer the best-of-breed solution for every customer requirement. However, overall, their products are strong and often include some exceptional capabilities. Additionally, they provide solutions that offer relatively low risk.” “We believe that being positioned in the leaders quadrant by Gartner in each of the three regions demonstrates that Aspect continues to address the ever-evolving needs of contact centers, which has been our strategy for success throughout the last 34 years,“ said Jim Foy, president and CEO of Aspect Software.  “We have a broad understanding of where the contact center market is moving and we’re developing solutions like Aspect® Unified IP™ that provide greater flexibility and reduced complexity or our latest offering, PerformanceEdge™, which is helping contact centers consider everything and then take immediate action by maximizing the resources available to them.”The Gartner Magic Quadrant analyzes the vendors in an industry and categorizes them as “leaders,” “challengers,” “visionaries” or “niche players”.Source:1Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, North America, 2007”, 16 August 2007.  Drew Kraus, Bern Elliot. 2Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, EMEA, 2006”, 30 October 2007.  Drew Kraus, Steve Blood, Steve Cramoysan.3Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Asia/Pacific, 2007”, 12 September 2007.  Geoff Johnson, Drew Kraus.About the Magic QuadrantThe Magic Quadrants are copyrighted 2007 by Gartner, Inc. and are reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.About Aspect Software Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite, combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Note:  Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are trademarks and registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or tradenames are the property of their respective owners. text/html 2007-11-08T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease11_8_07 JOHANNESBURG, 8 November 2007 - Aspect Software, Inc., the world’s largest company solely focused on the contact centre, has announced that authorised Aspect channel partner, Inter-Active Technologies, is now operating South Africa’s first Aspect® Unified IP™ outsourced contact centre. By using Aspect Unified IP, Inter-Active can offer companies the capability to outsource inbound and outbound customer interaction management to its ACTIVcontact™ hub, which has a capacity of more than 300 contact centre seats.“Our customers can now have all of the high reliability, performance and flexibility that contact centres need to successfully deliver positive interactions. For example, contact centres who want to outsource the overflow on incoming calls to minimise caller waiting times, can have these calls automatically rerouted to the Inter-Active Technologies contact centre, where our agents are ready to assist,” said Brendan van Staaden, chief executive of Inter-Active Technologies. “We have the greatest of faith in Aspect products, having sold their products for a number of years, because they provide a trusted application on a stable and reliable platform. With 2200m2 of contact centre space, Inter-Active Technologies is planning to expand into this area with Aspect Software solutions, to continue to give our clients more control and flexibility while we meet their needs for additional offerings, such as multimedia and outbound blending.”Aspect Unified IP (previously known as Aspect® EnsemblePro™)  is a session initiation protocol (SIP)-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) unified contact centre solution that provides automatic call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal capabilities, Internet contact, workflow management, multichannel recording and quality management to help organizations achieve their customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business process goals. In addition, it also includes an embedded voice portal for advanced speech recognition and text-to-speech, advanced outbound list management, and multi-tenancy and partitioning that supports a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.Inter-Active Technologies is also interoperating Aspect Unified IP with the Asterisk Business Edition™ IP PBX. Asterisk Business Edition is an enterprise-grade version of the acclaimed Asterisk® open source PBX. Because of its SIP-based VoIP capabilities, the Asterisk Business Edition can readily interoperate with Aspect Unified IP, enabling Inter-Active Technologies to see even more benefits through reduced costs and greater flexibility.“Inter-Active Technologies’ inauguration of the first Aspect Software IP-based outsourced contact centre in South Africa is extremely exciting. Aspect Software sees huge growth potential for outsourcing and hosted applications through this partnership,” said Henry McCracken, regional sales director for the Africa region at Aspect Software. “With Aspect Unified IP and the Asterisk Business Edition, Inter-Active Technologies can now leverage a number of capabilities to meet the specific business requirements of each of its individual customers. Clearly, companies in South Africa are seeing the advantages of implementing standards-based unified applications, and Inter-Active Technologies is leading the way.”About Inter-ActiveInter-Active Technologies (Pty) Ltd is a specialist Call Centre and Communication Operation.Years of Services Innovation and System Design in Customer Contact Centres, Business Communication Services and Information Communication Technologies has positioned Inter-Active as a sought after customer contact "Delivery Channel".With headquarters in Johannesburg South Africa and offices in Lagos Nigeria, Inter-Active Technologies is well positioned to drive contact centre delivery services to the African market as a whole.  For more information visit: www.inter-active.co.zaInter-Active Technologies (Pty) Ltd is an Authorised Financial Services Provider: FSP number 28900About Aspect SoftwareAspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world’s largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP™ Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow.   PerformanceEdge™, the industry’s first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications.  And, the company’s trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Note:  Aspect, Unified IP, EnsemblePro, and Aspect Software are registe