MINNEAPOLIS, MN and SAN JOSE, CA., May 23, 2000 - Building upon Cisco Systems, Inc.'s recent investment in Spanlink Communications, Inc., the two companies today announced an extended relationship to include consulting initiatives focused on the Cisco Internet Communications Software Group (ICSG). Specifically, Spanlink has signed an agreement with Cisco to provide a combination of products and integration services that will help Cisco customers transition from traditional call-center technologies to Internet-enabled customer contact solutions. Additionally, Spanlink will work with Cisco customers to help deploy sophisticated unified communications solutions based on the Cisco Unified Open Network Exchange (uOne) product platform.
"The Internet is clearly driving a revolution in customer contact management, and we intend to lead in that revolution," said Brett Shockley, president and CEO of Spanlink. "We have integrated our award-winning suite of products with the leading technologies from Cisco ICSG to create best-in-class solutions for Internet-enabled customer contact and unified communications."
Rapid Implementation for a Broad Range of Solutions
Spanlink will offer single-point-of-contact solutions for a variety of Cisco ICSG platform products. By integrating the components of the Cisco customer contact and unified communications software platforms with Spanlink's comprehensive FastCall Enterprise family of integrated Computer Telephony Integration/Interactive Voice Response (CTI/IVR) products, businesses will be able to take their customer management capabilities into the Internet era. (See related news announcement today: "Cisco Announces Comprehensive Strategies for the Delivery of Software Solutions and Services")
"We have been very impressed with Spanlink's extensive expertise and track record of innovative and rapid contact center and unified communications solutions deployment," said Eugene Lee, vice president of marketing for the Cisco Systems' Internet Communications Software Group. "They have moved aggressively to develop leading capabilities with our entire suite of products in a short period of time. We will work closely with Spanlink to develop more solutions that take advantage of their core values for high-quality solutions that implement rapidly. "
Unified Communications
In the past, electronic mail users have been forced to check many different in-boxes, including voice mail, email or fax. Cisco's uOne unified communications software platform offers messaging providers advanced capabilities to simplify the task of sending and retrieving messages. Whether it is an Application Service Provider (ASP) offering a single in-box for voice, fax and email along with real-time call management capabilities; or an enterprise seeking greater efficiency, Spanlink's ability to develop call-flow models, offer fast, accurate production deployments for the uOne solution.
Spanlink will also offer a lab that will enable partners to become certified on ICSG products. Here, Spanlink will demonstrate the viability of quick-to-deploy unified communications to Cisco customers.
Customer Contact Management
Integrating proven CTI products such as Spanlink's FastCall. Agent with Cisco's intelligent contact management software, Cisco ICM, will allow enterprises to effectively route incoming calls to the best-available agent using skills based routing. Spanlink's methodologies and experience allow rapid integration to existing telephony components such as IVR units and automatic call distributors (ACD), creating faster return on investment and lower operational costs.
