[January 9, 2002]

Interactive Intelligence Releases Large-Scale Unified Communications Product

Interactive Intelligence Inc. released its new unified communications product, called Communite (com-mu-ni-tay). Communite replaces legacy voice mail systems and fax machines, and extends unified messaging by providing new services such as call screening and one-number follow me for even the largest organization. Communite is tightly integrated with Microsoft Exchange 2000 and Active Directory, enabling users to access all types of messages from their e-mail inboxes.

An April 2, 2001 research brief titled "Clear Signs of Demand for UM" by leading industry analyst firm, Gartner, Inc., reported that nearly half the small businesses in the United States already have, or intend to buy, products or services to integrate their systems for handling messages sent through voice mail, e-mail or fax.

"The days of standalone voice mail systems and fax servers are over," Dr. Donald E. Brown, president and chief executive officer for Interactive Intelligence, said. "Organizations are increasingly demanding the efficiency of unified messaging. They want their employees to be able to look at one place -- their inbox -- for their e-mail messages, voice mails and faxes. Beyond basic unified messaging, organizations want employees to be able to have their calls follow them when they're out of the office. Communite provides these capabilities and many others, all tightly integrated with Microsoft Exchange 2000, Outlook and Active Directory."

Communite is targeted at enterprises with as few as 100 employees, up to Fortune 500 companies. Service providers can also use Communite to offer unified communications services deployed on service provider networks.

Said Mike Enyeart, chief scientist of telecommunications for beta customer, Indiana University: "We selected Communite over competing products because it offered an open, flexible architecture with a comprehensive feature-set that re-defines unified communications. As a result, we finally had the business case we needed to invest in what will be an increasingly important technology to distributed organizations such as our own."

Communite installs on a Windows 2000 server and integrates with most PBXs to provide the following:

• Voice mail -- Messages are recorded and stored as compressed wave files attached to e-mail messages.
• Desktop faxing -- Faxes are stored as e-mail attachments. Users can fax documents right from their desks from any PC application.
• Universal inbox -- Users can access their e-mails, voice mails, and faxes from their desktop PCs, over the phone, from a Web browser, and even via PDAs.
• Call screening -- When on the road, users can hear who's calling before deciding to take a call or send it to voice mail.
• Call recording -- Communite can automatically record calls for legal reasons or at a user's signal.
• Follow me -- Calls can automatically be routed to a cell phone, hotel phone, or other location when a user is out of the office.
• Personal rules -- Users can set up powerful rules for message notifications (e.g. page me if my boss leaves a voice mail) and incoming phone calls (e.g. try me on my cell phone and my home phone if my best customer calls after hours).

Communite was designed for easy deployment by addressing the following issues:

• Connectivity -- Communite connects to almost any PBX by analog, T1, E1, or ISDN PRI lines. It also has AMIS and VPIM support for connectivity to legacy voice mail systems.
• Security -- Users are authenticated against Microsoft Active Directory for all access.
• Scalability -- Communite can handle the needs of organizations with up to 100,000 users distributed over multiple locations, including multi-tenant environments.
• Functionality -- In addition to its rich set of unified communications features, Communite includes capabilities for text-to-speech, speech recognition, and interactive voice response (IVR).
• Customizability -- Communite can be extended to provide touch-tone access to company directories, customer data, human resource information, and other IT systems.
• Extensibility -- Communite's capabilities can be augmented at any time by adding on Mobilite for access via wireless PDAs and e-FAQ for knowledge management.

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