• New Distributed Call Center System From Teloquent
• Silknet Introduces eService For The Web
• Symphony CTI Communications Management System From Dictaphone
• Vodavi Releases KeyTelephone System And Desktop Videoconferencing

New Distributed Call Center System From Teloquent
Teloquent Communications Corp. has announced Release 4 of its Distributed Call Center�, a client/server call center system designed to support the demands of the enterprisewide call center environment. As a result of its client/server architecture, Distributed Call Center Release 4 provides large, enterprise organizations with a solution for supporting distributed environments, telecommuting programs and virtual office locations; it also enables organizations to broaden their customers' "zone of contact" by allowing customers to reach call center agents through voice, video or the Internet. It is designed to support up to 1,800 call center agents in a multisite, geographically dispersed call center environment.

In Distributed Call Center Release 4, Teloquent has introduced two new NT-based products that reinforce the current IT direction of most enterprise organizations. Also in this release, Teloquent is announcing support for Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology - enabling organizations to fully leverage their existing technology investments. Distributed Call Center Release 4 features new reporting and administrative features plus: multithreaded database access; configurable data definitions; enterprisewide report sharing; and simplified administration.

Distributed Call Center Release 4 now supports an expanding list of new media including voice, video and the Internet. This support is provided directly through three Teloquent products included in the Distributed Call Center solution which can operate simultaneously on the same PhoneServer: Open@gent TM , a family of desktop telephony software that works with a host of network interfaces (ISDN, POTS, PBX lines) and allows organizations to use corporate Intranets (or other networks using TCP/IP) to economically place call center agents anywhere; Web Call Center TM , which links people browsing the World Wide Web with live agents, providing a mix of self-help and human assistance that is convenient for the customer and economical for the call center; and Video Call Center TM , which pro-vides call centers with the ability to sup-port video interaction between customers and agents.

Teloquent also introduced two new NT-based products: the next generation of Teloquent's Desktop Reports for Windows and Voice Services Module (VSM). In version 4.0 Desktop Reports for Windows, Teloquent now supports Windows NT in addition to its previous support of Windows 95 and 3.11. Teloquent's next-generation VSM is equipped with an enhanced capacity of up to 48 ports capable of supporting enterprise call center environments and includes options for fax applications, voice recognition, and text-to-speech. For more information, contact Bob McGrail at 508-663-7570 or see www.teloquent.com

Silknet Introduces eServiceTM For The Web
Silknet Software, Inc. has announced the introduction of eService, an enterprise customer service solution designed specifically for the World Wide Web. eService is a comprehensive, multimedia customer service solution designed to complement, or even replace, traditional telephone-based call centers.

Because eService allows customers to resolve their own service issues without having to talk to live service representatives, it saves them from such call center annoyances as being placed on hold, being transferred to multiple service representatives or being subjected to seemingly endless touch-tone prompts.

eService makes use of the Web's multimedia capabilities, such as text, graphics, audio and video, giving companies the ability to provide customers more robust answers to their questions than they can through the typical constraints of a single-medium telephone interaction. eService comprises both public (customer) and private (company) components. Customers can access any eService support site with a standard Web browser and search the eService "knowledge base" for answers to their questions. If the knowledge base does not have an appropriate answer, they can request service from live service representatives. Customers can also choose how they would like service representatives to respond: e-mail, Internet conference, conventional telephone or the Web itself.

On the private side, service representatives can use eService's solutions-publishing capability to create multimedia solutions to customer inquiries, without knowing any HTML or having any programming expertise. When multiple customers inquire about an identical service issue, the service rep can add a multimedia solution to the knowledge base so customers can attain the information themselves, thus ceasing the repetitive inquiries and decreasing the number of "calls" coming into live service reps.

Besides eliminating the need for paid service reps to answer repetitive inquiries, eService also drastically reduces 800-number charges incurred from frustrated customers hanging up the phone after long waits in queue, and the ill-will caused by these incidents. Silknet built eService from the ground-up for the Web, designing it to handle thousands of simultaneous customer inquiries. It was also designed to integrate seamlessly with all leading computer-telephony integration systems and databases. For more information, contact Jim Davis at 603-625-0070 or see www.silknet.com

Symphony CTI(tm) Communications Management System From Dictaphone
Dictaphone Corporation has announced the introduction of Symphony CTI, a computer-telephony integrated communications management system. The system was designed for trading floors and call centers that need to record and archive large numbers of phone transactions to reduce their exposure to liability and potential loss, or prove compliance. It also improves productivity by allowing users to access and verify phone transactions more quickly. The system is compatible with most major ACDs, turret systems and PBXs, including a wide range of TAPI-compliant switches. It uses real-time data passed by the switch to facilitate finding calls or to selectively record calls.

Depending on a user's switch, Symphony CTI's Advanced Call Retrieval System (ACRS) can capture a variety of switch data, including but not limited to calling party (CLID), the called party, the dialed number (DNIS), the trunk, the extension, whether the call is inbound or outbound, and the agent ID. The system's open architecture design also allows it to be customized to capture customer-specific information from a company's internal systems, like a customer ID, an order number, account number or transaction number. This information is stored in a centralized ODBC call records database and can be used to locate and verify a particular phone transaction. Using Symphony CTI's Event-Driven Recording Module (EDRM), the system can be customized to selectively record calls based on real-time data passed by the user's switch, or even tailored to a customer's own event-driven or agent-initiated recording needs.

With its Selectable Telephony Input Path (STIP), Symphony CTI can sup-port recording from both analog and digital inputs (T1, E1, PCM-30) in a single system. For larger operations, Symphony CTI's Scalable Channel Array (SCA) supports recording of thousands of channels on a single, net-worked system, easily integrating into a company's local or wide area network topology.

Recorded phone transactions can be played back over a local or wide area network on a PC using a Sound Blaster-compatible card. Up to 1,280 hours of audio can be stored online and instantly accessed by multiple users at the same time, providing they have proper security clearance. For larger operations, Symphony CTI's Archive Media Warehouse (AMW) can provide unattended recording of and automatic access to literally months, even years of recordings with minimal human intervention. In addition to supporting remote access via a WAN, Symphony CTI offers a host of other powerful features for trading floors and call centers, including DTMF recording and decoding, a user access audit trail that tracks all user activities on the system, a global commands feature for system-wide tape management, and real-time recording that always keeps track of both active and silent periods so users can verify with confidence what transpired. For more information, call 800-447-7749, Ext. D348, or see www.dictaphone.com

Vodavi Releases KeyTelephone System And Desktop Videoconferencing
Vodavi Communications Systems, Inc. has announced the introduction of the infinite DVX Plus Digital Hybrid Telephone System and the TeleSight TM 320 desktop videoconferencing system. The infinite DVX Plus is designed to enable users to build powerful communications capabilities including wireless, ISDN, networking and computer-telephony and voice processing applications.

The infinite DVX Plus family consists of four system configurations, rang-ng in size from a 6-line by 16-station (with four optional SLT ports) flat-pack system, to a card-cage cabinet supporting up to 192 universal ports. The sys-tem supports Vodavi's Discovery CT Series of computer-telephony integration products, which supports both PC-centric and telephone-centric desktop CTI applications. For example, the Discovery CT Integration Package pro-vides a PC Board, Discovery CT Phone software and a handset in a turnkey package, allowing users to completely replace the traditional proprietary digital key telephone on their desk by providing all the keyset functionality in the PC. Private conversations are handled through the use of the handset, which plugs into the PC board.

The Discovery CT Integration Package is fully TAPI compatible, supporting a variety of software applications. In addition, all the DVX Plus digital telephones are enabled to support CTI through an external Discovery CT Module. In this "telephone- centric" scenario, users can choose any one of five models of telephones and integrate them with their PC at any time. Users can then use Vodavi's PC Phone for Windows software as the graphical user interface.

The infinite DVX Plus provides more than 200 system and station features including: T-1 networking and trunking capabilities, ANI, DNIS, DID, OHVO, Caller ID, ACD and one-button record (to voice mail). Capabilities to be sup-ported in the near future include: PRI and BRI ISDN, which will ultimately support ISDN to the desktop for high-speed data transmission, Internet access or videoconferencing; an integrated wireless application to provide user mobility and flexibility; and digital voice mail integration. In addition, the system uses PC-Database Administration (DBA) software for PC-based programming and it is compatible with the infinite Electronic Key Telephones, enabling customers with these telephone systems to retain their telephones while upgrading to the capabilities of the DVX Plus system.

The TeleSight TM 320 is a desktop videoconferencing system that is an H.320-compliant standards-based sys-tem compatible with other H.320-com-pliant systems (regardless of manufacturer). Over an ISDN line TeleSight 320 offers video communications at up to 30 frames per second, simultaneous file sharing at each end, and is also an ISDN terminal adapter providing "modem" functionality at 128 Kbs.

The TeleSight TM has a full duplex speaker phone with echo cancellation, picture-in-picture to show both ends of the call, and supports up to a five-party videoconference with four parties displayed on the screen (an external conferencing service is required). It will also make voice-only calls. TeleSight 320 is available in both kit form and as a fully configured turnkey system on a Pentium-based PC. For more information, contact Elizabeth Perrine at 602-443-6045 or see www.vodavi.com.