Dynamic Enterprise Feature Editorial

Alcatel-Lucent Extends Genesys Portfolio of Contact Center Solutions

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

The contact center industry is sure to benefit from Alcatel-Lucent's latest announcement. This provider of fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services has extended its Genesys portfolio of contact center solutions by further integrating key products into a multiplatform, open environment.

The Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) Enterprise Market Group has placed a focus on leveraging the Genesys brand and tap into the Genesys best-of-breed offerings that were traditionally separate from Alcatel-Lucent's enterprise portfolio. Such a move helps to enable a broader range of solutions.

An extension of its open platform approach of the Genesys (News - Alert) solutions includes the integration of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouchaEURAc Premium Edition. This solution bundles Genesys contact center solutions with the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCXaEURAc Enterprise Communication Server (a PBX (News - Alert)). The result is a multiplatform solution with a broader market appeal.

With this expansion, the OmniTouch Premium Edition will be rebranded as Genesys Compact edition. Mid-market enterprises with up to 150 agents will be the key market for this solution as it embraces a software-driven approach to enable enterprises to smoothly migrate from legacy PBX systems to a more flexible SIP environment. Such flexibility helps to support the trend toward IP telephony.

In taking an open approach, the company is able to maintain existing switching infrastructure, while also moving at their own pace to new, SIP-based infrastructure as it supports both SIP and proprietary legacy PBX systems.

Offering simplified configuration and administration for mid-sized enterprises ensures the Genesys Compact edition will allow access to sophisticated customer contact center capabilities generally only available on larger systems. Initial customers will begin implementation in July, while broad product availability is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2010.

The Alcatel-Lucent Visual Contact Center is considered the cornerstone of this mid-market offering. A software cockpit, it integrates in a single user interface all the tools required to configure, control and measure contact center activities.

For simple voice environments, the Visual Contact Center interface will be available as an option for the Genesys contact center solutions. It will also complement the sophisticated set of role-based interfaces that were introduced with the Genesys 8 Software Suite.

A tight integration of the Alcatel-Lucent platform with Genesys software was found in the combination of Genesys and the OmniPCX under the OmniGenesys name. Renamed Genesys, the tight integration of this solution ensures enterprises can quickly synchronize the configurations of the OmniPCX platform and Genesys software.

In other Alcatel-Lucent news, the company recently announced its cloud-based Developer Platform has been selected as this year's "Most Innovative New Application" at the Andrew Seybold Choice Awards.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Erin Harrison