OpenScape Contact Center: Standalone ACD for a UC WorldOpenScape Contact Center: Standalone ACD for a UC World

OpenScape has been the brand associated with Siemens' market-defining unified communications solutions for over 5 years. With an announcement today, that brand gets extended to the company's contact center solution.

OpenScape has been the brand associated with Siemens' market-defining unified communications solutions for over 5 years. With an announcement today, that brand gets extended to the company's contact center solution.Perhaps most remarkable thing about the news is how quickly it follows on the heels of Siemens announcement at CeBit 2008 of the OpenScape UC Server with voice, video and UC capabilities. At that time, Siemens promised that additional applications on the roadmap for the OpenScape UC Server included the Siemens ProCenter application. Often roadmap items take years to become reality - not weeks!

One of the "au courant" attributes of OpenScape UC Server is its packaging, more similar to software licensing (a la Microsoft Office) than traditional communications. For example, the OpenScape Voice and UC Application package include one OpenScape UC server license and 100 OpenScape Voice and UC Team licenses. Netted out, that means for one price a customer has voice and advanced unified communications capability for 100 users.

The OpenScape Contact Center packaging builds on this concept. Two new packages will be available upon general availability June 30, 2008 that combine the voice, unified communications and contact center applications of OpenScape. One bundle, the OpenScape Voice and UC Package, supports 10 agents, for environments that primarily support voice and UC for a business, and just a few agents are required. Extra agent licenses can be easily added.

The second package, the OpenScape Contact Center package, supports 60 agents with voice, UC and contact center. Particularly interesting about this one is its ability to work similar to a standalone ACD. In the old days (circa 1990), a stand-alone ACD like Aspect CallCenter or Rockwell Spectrum could work side-by-side with any PBX, using its own switching matrix. Likewise the OpenScape Contact Center can work in any communications environment, as it includes the voice and contact center applications.

With its standalone ACD capability, OpenScape Contact Center can be sold like a Trojan horse; upgrade your contact center today and down the road add voice and UC licenses as existing PBX solutions reach end of life. There's a common framework, common desktop client, your choice of presence (IBM, Microsoft, XMPP). UC and the contact center are coming closer together every day.