Unified Communications and contact center solution provide Zeacom (News - Alert) has been developing and enhancing its Communications Center some 14 years now. Anyone who has seen it in action knows the breadth of its capabilities and its ease of use.

At last month’s INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO in Los Angeles, President of Zeacom Americas, Ernie Wallerstein (News - Alert) was patently excited about the latest features of Communications Center 5.1 — the latest version of the software solution.

In particular, Wallerstein was keen to point out the enhanced mobility features of the solution, including an easy to use buddy list that integrated into the presence capabilities Zeacom has developed. In essence, Communications Center uses an aesthetically pleasing user interface that offers a view of an entire organization’s presence status.

Now, Zeacom, which provides the ability to integrate its solution into Windows Mobile devices, has made it easier to communicate with colleagues while on the road. Instead of having to locate key team members in the corporate directory, Zeacom has added buddy lists to its mobile application, giving users a simplified view of their key contacts.

This is in addition to the other presence features Zeacom has developed, including the ability to add as many as 99 unique, presence- and group- based voicemail greetings. In conjunction, ZCC also offers more than mere availability of contacts — its 99 voice mail greetings go hand in hand with 99 different presence indicators, so contacts know not only if others are available, but what they are doing.

Users can set their presence to anything from available to in a meeting to on vacation to on a plane to golfing to happy hour at the pub. Importantly, they can also set unique contact settings for each presence setting, allowing only certain individuals to contact them in each situation.

Still, despite years of dedication and enhancements, ZCC was still missing two capabilities — workforce management and call recording. According to Zeacom’s vice president of sales Brady Cox (News - Alert), ZCC integrates easily into all of the major WFM solutions, effectively eliminating that problem.

That is not to say it does not have eyes for its own WFM solution — as Cox noted, “We are big on having a single point of contact for all of our applications.” That becomes considerably easier to manage when you have developed the applications yourself.

The key missing element, though, according to Wallerstein — and the one customers requested most frequently — was call recording functionality. That piece has also now been addressed with the acquisition of the Mi-Audio business from New Zealand-based Talking Computer — Zeacom is headquartered in New Zealand, but has its U.S. headquarters in Irvine, California.

The Mi-Audio deal will allow Zeacom to easily integrate a voice recording module into Communications Center — without requiring the development time. In fact, according to Cox, the integration process should take only half a year or so.

The Mi-Audio module provides Windows-based call recording solution, which, when combined with the Mi-Eval evaluation, assessment, and coaching functions, provides a simple, yet effective tool for quality management and improvement. The new modules will be available to existing and new customers as soon as integration work is complete.

In fact, “Work is already underway to take the administrative front end, reporting engines, and the database, and merge them with the rest of our application,” said Cox.

With the addition of call recording to its Communications Center, Zeacom closes the loop in a major request from its users — and also adds a feature that is increasingly being adopted globally by both contact centers and enterprises, both of which can benefit from deploying ZCC.

For more on Zeacom, check out my video interview with Brady Cox from ITEXPO.