Microsoft and Aspect to Continue Push for Unified Communications

Microsoft and Aspect Software, maker of customer contact center software, have entered a 5-year partnership to promote unified communications via Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007.Aspect will integrate its Unified IP call center software with Microsoft's OCS to create a more capable solution that will enable contact center agents to reach experts throughout a company's operation. Gurdeep Pall, vice president of unified communications at Microsoft, and Aspect CEO Jim Foy offered the example of a customer reaching the contact center via the Internet being able to click a button to reach an expert in any of the business's offices.

"More than 10% of all calls are not resolved in a contact center and that instantly stymies the prospect of first time resolution in any query, but unified communications, messaging and presence dovetail perfectly to what we want to do in the contact center," said Foy. "Now, when agents want to link directly to somewhere else in the enterprise, they can link directly."Computerworld, InformationWeek