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Rockwell FirstPoint Contact Ushers In Era of Viable VoIP Products for the Contact Center
[May 20, 2004]

Rockwell FirstPoint Contact Ushers In Era of Viable VoIP Products for the Contact Center

Solid Solution Replaces Industry Hype

WOOD DALE, Ill., May 19, 2004 – Rockwell FirstPoint Contact Corp., a global provider of complete call and contact center solutions, today announced the availability of its FirstPoint Enterprise product leveraging CiscoÒ CallManager. This new product offers enterprise level contact centers the most comprehensive Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call center solution currently available.



This new product extends the capabilities of the Cisco CallManager infrastructure with the same product features and routing, reporting and monitoring functionality that are in the TDM version of FirstPoint Enterprise.

A recent Gartner report projects that IP contact center agent shipments will grow to account for about one-third of all agent shipments in 20071. Preliminary statistics by Gartner also identified Cisco CallManager as the industry’s leading IP infrastructure with 34 percent of the market share in North America in 20032.


For those companies who are moving to an IP environment in the contact center, they now have the option of migrating at a pace that best fits their needs, without compromising the features and benefits they currently offer to their customers.

Among the robust applications that FirstPoint Enterprise offers:
· Priority queuing, which establishes priorities for your most valuable customer segments;
· Real time intelligent announcements that offers callers information on position in queue or wait time;
· Simulation/modeling tools to test integrity of routing sequences and troubleshoot configurations;
· Comprehensive reports that have more than 1,800 data elements and 180 standard report templates;
· Dynamic business rules administration to respond to real time conditions, such as time of day, average speed of answer, and automatically adjust for those conditions.

“After years of hype in the industry, there is finally a viable VoIP solution for the contact center. Combining Rockwell FirstPoint Contact’s renowned knowledge of automatic call distributors (ACDs) and computer telephony integration (CTI), with Cisco CallManager, enables organizations to make a seamless transition to a feature-rich IP solution that maintains the reliability and extensive capabilities of a TDM-based contact center,” said Roger Sumner, Rockwell FirstPoint Contact’s chief technology officer.

FirstPoint Enterprise has been tested in accordance with interoperability criteria set by Cisco Systems, Inc. for compatibility with the Cisco CallManager.

As a result of this verification, Rockwell FirstPoint Contact has successfully completed all Cisco AVVID Technology Affiliate Program requirements for FirstPoint Enterprise. Cisco AVVID Technology Affiliates are companies who support Cisco’s AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data) network infrastructure with applications, products and services. This is a reference program offered by Cisco designed to express interoperability and foster innovative development.

Pricing Model
The FirstPoint Enterprise leveraging Cisco CallManager product is priced the same as FirstPoint Enterprise v10.0. This pricing model allows companies to buy on a per seat basis, with a list price of $1,950 per user. Additional software licenses can be purchased and activated without interrupting ongoing customer service.

Global distribution of FirstPoint Enterprise leveraging Cisco CallManager will be through both direct and channel sales.

1 Source: Gartner, Inc. “IP Call Center Market Gaining Momentum in North America”, 23 December 2003. D. Kraus.

2 Source: Gartner, Inc. “PSE Preliminary Market Statistics: North America, 2003”, 19 March 2004. M. Fernandez.

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