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UC Grows into Contact Center Market

Unified communications have swept through the enterprise, delivering increases in quality, efficiency and productivity, while reducing overall communication costs. These benefits have not escaped the contact center. In fact, the implementation of unified communications can greatly enhance the performance of the contact center, helping it to reduce costs and increase effectiveness. With the benefits that unified technologies can provide throughout the enterprise, the market is likely to continue strong growth.

COMMfusion LLC, in association with UCStrategies.com, announced a new study on the growing unified communications (UC) market.
www.commfusion.com
www.ucstrategies.com

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Microsoft, Nortel Deliver Hosted UC Solution

Microsoft Corp. and Nortel have announced a fully hosted carrier solution designed to deliver a unified communications experience to small and midsize businesses (SMBs), extending benefits previously available only to large enterprises. The hosted solution is based on the Nortel Communications Server 2000 (CS 2000), an IP multimedia softswitch, and the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration Version 4.5 (HMC 4.5), which comprises hosted versions of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Nortel is delivering the first integration with HMC 4.5 to help manage real-time communications and deliver a unified messaging experience. www.microsoft.com www.nortel.com

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Companies to Provide UC Solution for Athletic Recruiting
Ifbyphone, a telephone application platform company, announced that it has signed a strategic agreement with Jump- Forward, an on-demand sports-relationship-management solutions provider, to deliver a comprehensive communications solution for high school athletes and college coaches. The combined solution is expected to provide unified communication solution for the athletic recruiting process.

JumpForward officials say their company provides a converged on-demand communications platform that empowers high school athletes and parents to navigate and streamline the entire athletic recruiting and communications process. The Ifbyphone application first calls the athlete's designated number and then dials the college coach's phone, keeping the student athlete's number private.
www.ifbyphone.com
www.jumpforward.com

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Objectworld, Dialogic Team to Deliver UC to Existing PBX Systems
Objectworld Communications Corp., announced a partnership with Dialogic Corp. that is designed to enable Objectworld's Unified Communications Server Standard Edition to interface with any PBX supported by Dialogic gateways. By teaming up with Dialogic, Objectworld expects to now be able to deliver unified communications capabilities to approximately 95% of the existing PBX market in North America.

Together with Dialogic's gateways and Objectworld's software-based UC solution, businesses can keep existing PBX systems and phones and reap the benefits of unified messaging, communications-enabled business processes, personal call control, auto-attendants, mobility notification services, unified fax and more, all integrated seamlessly and in real-time with Microsoft Active Directory to make administration simple and straightforward.
www.objectworld.com
www.dialogic.com

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ShoreGroup Named Cisco Authorized Technology Provider
ShoreGroup, Inc., has earned the designation of Cisco Systems Authorized Technology Provider for Customer Voice Portal. This program focuses on the growing contact center self-service marketplace. ShoreGroup will provide the customers with costeffective, personalized voice self-service applications and the transparent transfer of information from voice self-service to agentassisted service. ShoreGroup, a systems management solutions and IT professional services firm, delivers a complete portfolio of management applications, maintenance solutions, professional services and products for unified communications networks. ShoreGroup achieved the ATP CVP designation by meeting Cisco's rigorous training and knowledge validation requirements. These certifications equip the company to design, build and support Customer Voice Portal solutions within distributed and centralized enterprise contact centers.
www.cisco.com
www.shoregroup.com

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BroadSoft APIs to Integrate VoIP Into Web 2.0
BroadSoft, Inc., a provider of VoIP application software, today announced the availability of "Xtended Services Interface," its new RESTful application programming interfaces. The interfaces are meant to help developers integrate BroadSoft's carrier-grade voice applications with unified communications solutions and that of Web-based business and consumer applications, such as Facebook. Xsi is the latest component to be announced as a part of BroadSoft's Xtended Program, an initiative for the creation of mashups which will help integrate BroadSoft's VoIP platform with other applications that are widely used across by millions. The RESTful-based Xsi allows subscriber and call resources to be accessed and used via HTTP and simple XML.
www.broadsoft.com

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Johor to Deploy Cisco Unified Communications
The Johor State Government has said it is set to deploy Cisco's Unified Communications system. The system, which includes more than 1,000 Cisco Unified IP Phones, will deliver the voice, video and data communications needs of state government employees in the Johor State New Administrative Center ( JSNAC) in Nusajaya. Cisco networking equipment will also provide connectivity for Johor State under the Johor Electronic Government ( JEG) Phases 1 and 2, with the project management undertaken by MysysNet. The Johor State Government's decision to deploy Cisco Unified Communications is part of the state's plans to use technology to enhance economic development there. Cisco Gold Certified Partner HP and MysysNet, an information and communications technology (ICT) systems integrator in Johor will take care of the deployment. www.cisco.com

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Infonetics: UC Market Grew 20 Percent in 2007
The unified communications market, including messaging and software, increased 20 percent in 2007, following a 19 percent jump in 2006, and the IP contact center also grew by 24 percent in 2007, according to Infonetics Research, after a 26 percent increase in 2006. A recent report, Unified Communications and IP Contact Centers, finds that UC and IPCC sales grew 22 percent, taken together, to hit $1.05 billion worldwide in 2007, "and healthy growth is expected through at least 2011." Infonetics officials say their study tracks add-on applications for IP PBXs that provide communication features in addition to basic IP PBX functionality, including unified messaging and communicator, and IP contact centers, including automatic call distribution, interactive voice response, and computer telephony integration.
www.infonetics.com

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Chinese Hospital to Enhance Mobility and Services with Avaya UC
Beijing Ditan Hospital, a top Chinese hospital specializing in infectious diseases and a leading institution on AIDS treatment and prevention, will deploy Avaya's Unified Communications solutions in order to enhance efficiency of its highly mobile staff, and provide timely and quality services to patients. The Avaya solution, comprising Avaya's IP Softphone, unified messaging, and conferencing applications, will be installed in the new site of Beijing Ditan Hospital, which is expected to be put into use in June of 2008. Ditan Hospital will also set up a customer contact center with 20 agents, and all of them will have Avaya 4600 series IP Phones. They will handle inquiries from patients or their relatives around the nation. And in case there is the need to involve hospital experts, they can easily conference them in.
www.avaya.com