Genesys to support Asterisks IP telephony platform

Move is immediately embraced by customers

The use of IP technology in contact centres received a major boost today with the announcement that industry leader Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, will now support the Asterisk open source IP PBX platform.

“Genesys is adding formal support for Asterisk in response to growing demand from our customer base. The increased importance of SIP and standards-based technology has paved the way for using open source for contact centres. We have reached a point where Asterisk and SIP are mature, reliable and proven technologies,” said Wes Hayden, president and CEO of Genesys.

The addition of Asterisk is part of a broader strategy by Genesys to enable a smooth transition to IP through software that works with any infrastructure, allowing companies to leverage their existing investments.

In related announcements, Genesys customers unveiled key deployments of the technology, at Groupama Rhone Alpes Auvergne in France, and E.Novation Contact Centers in the Netherlands, and Global Speech Networks of Australia.

“For E.Novation Contact Centers, deploying Genesys on Asterisk allows us to create a flexible solution that leverages best-in-class software and platforms. E.Novation has brought together customer solutions and business processes that improve our customer service significantly,” said Arnoud Munneke, Operational Director for E.Novation Contact Centers.

“Genesys has taken a leadership position in embracing new standards such as open source and SIP with Asterisk. As a result, Groupama Rhone Alpes Auvergne has been able to fully leverage the open IP capabilities of the Genesys suite to reduce our implementation costs and take advantage of next-generation IP telephony,” said Philippe Vayssac, Architect & Consultant for Groupama RAA Virtual Contact Centre.

“At Global Speech Networks, we are actively leveraging Asterisk and Genesys to provide customers with a highly flexible open IP contact centre solution. The openness of these platforms allows for a tight integration, supporting the dynamic and highly customised environments we require as a hosted contact centre services provider. While some in our industry have called upon others to embrace SIP-based telephony and open standards, Genesys has made it a reality. It is highly significant when the market leader takes such a step,” said Nick Rodda, CEO of Global Speech Networks.

The announcement by Genesys, the leading provider of software for customer service among large enterprises, is also expected to accelerate the evolution of major contact centres toward using voice over IP technology. Since large contact centres handle millions of calls per month, the scalability and reliability of IP is critical to their adoption rate. While many businesses have moved quickly to implement IP telephony for phone services, contact centres must meet much higher standards and cannot completely abandon traditional systems, or take a “forklift” approach to implementing IP. A recent Genesys survey found that 82 per cent of contact centres expect to begin their shift to IP over the next two years – but most expect to use a mixture of traditional circuit-switched telephony and IP – packet switching telephony across their operations.

29 Aug 2007

Filed under Call Centre News