Frohe Wiehnachten from inContact — the company announced the availability of its European cloud!

Not an easy feat considering the agreement was made with Siemens Enterprise Communications just half a year ago. According to the company’s 10-Q filing, it had to borrow $2.5 million in October 2011 to finance the European cloud buildout (Siemens guaranteed the loan). With these data centers squared away and operational, inContact can look forward to the $5 million in the new year from SEN.

Kudos to the inContact team for pulling this off in a relatively short timeframe. Good things seem to be coming its way (e.g. the recent Verzizon partnership) along with more aggressive sales and marketing, so hopefully we’ll see a significant improvement in its income statement in the near term…

The inContact press release:

SALT LAKE CITY (December 7, 2011) – inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS), the leading provider of cloud-based contact center software and contact center agent optimization tools, today announced the availability of the company’s multi-million dollar build-out of its full European cloud network. The European cloud network features redundant data centers in Munich and Frankfurt, Germany, a replica of the best-in-class network in the United States.

The new European facilities will enable inContact to provide multi-national customers with regional access to cloud contact center applications to better serve local needs.  These capabilities include regionally-stored calls and contacts, broader language support for speech applications and data handling to comply with European data security regulations.

“We applied the best practices we have honed over the past several years in our US data centers to building a fully redundant cloud network and application environment in Europe,” said Scott Welch, inContact Chief Operations Officer. “These new centers greatly increase our ability to support European and multi-national customers, as well as our new and growing partnership with Siemens Enterprise Communications.”

The Frankfurt and Munich sites further enable multi-national customers to take advantage of a true “Follow the Sun” model, where the appropriate contacts are delivered to properly skilled and available agents regardless of geography or time zone. It offers a universal queue, combined with an intelligent contact distribution platform with global reach, to ensure that the right contact is always handled by the right agent, providing a consistent customer experience.

Concluded Welch, “As we continue to grow our international presence, we have a clear road map and winning technology approach that will enable us to quickly expand into other geographies.”

Figure 1.1: inContact Data Centers and Voice Gateways Supporting Multi-National Business

About inContact

inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS) helps contact centers around the globe create profitable customer experiences through its powerful portfolio of cloud-based contact center software solutions. The company’s services and solutions enable contact centers to operate more efficiently, optimize the cost and quality of every customer interaction, create new pathways to profit and ensure ongoing customer-centric business improvement and growth. To learn more, visit www.inContact.com.

Additional Information
•    Learn about inContact international services
•    Follow @inContact on Twitter
•    Become a fan of inContact on Facebook
•    Read more about contact center best practices

Safe Harbor Statement: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking information made on the Company’s behalf. All statements, other than statements of historical facts which address the Company’s expectations of sources of capital or which express the Company’s expectation for the future with respect to financial performance or operating strategies, can be identified as forward-looking statements. Such statements made by the Company are based on knowledge of the environment in which it operates, but because of the factors previously listed, as well as other factors beyond the control of the Company, actual results may differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. (For the complete statement, please click here.)

inContact® is the registered trademark of inContact, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

OpenVBX is an open source Web-based business phone system that’s powered by Twilio. It’s just like a lightweight PBX with typical features such as menus, voicemail, messaging, etc. except there’s one catch: it requires Twilio as the cloud telephony provider.

Not cool, right?

That requirement translates to OpenVBX having some limitations such as no international numbers or international SMS, along with some, shall we say, “speech impediments.” The good folks at Disruptive Technologies kindly released OpenVBX 2.0 that incorporates bug fixes, Tropo compatibility and features, and VoiceVault biometrics API.

Or as Chris Matthieu of Voxeo (backers of Tropo) puts it, OpenVBX has been “jailbroken“:

The coders at Disruptive Technologies added full support for the the Tropo API and Phono SIP-based VoIP web phone to the communications layer of the OpenVBX project. Of course, when selecting the Tropo API, users will now get access to all of the more advanced features of the Tropo network: speech recognition and text-to-speech in 24 languages, phone numbers in over 40 countries, international SMS, in/outbound SIP VoIP support, inbound Skype support, multiple phone numbers per callflow script, improved conferencing.

Disruptive Technologies also extended OpenVBX with the VoiceVault API to support Voice Biometrics in password resets. After adding VoiceVault credentials on the API Accounts Tab, the password reset dialog will provide an option to request a phone call to reset your OpenVBX account password.

Giving users more choices is always awesome especially in the exciting world of Web telephony. It’s also interesting to note that Tropo is Twilio’s biggest competitor and each command a loyal following of developers.

Now I cannot wait to see the next iteration of OpenVBX…

Zendesk is a popular web-based customer support platform (e.g. help desk, ticketing, etc.) launched just three years ago. Some notable customers include the Denver Broncos, Gawker Media, Groupon, OpenTable, Sears, Sony Music, Tumblr, Yammer, and University of Lincoln (UK) — a good mix of market verticals and sizes.

Now with Twilio-powered Zendesk Voice, businesses can voice-enable their Zendesk system to provide call center features in mere minutes. According to Zendesk’s blog:

…Control your greetings, wait-times and voicemail rules, and call routing. You can even choose your hold music. So if smooth jazz or yacht rock is your thing, then go for it!

What’s most exciting about Voice is how easy and convenient it makes phone support. Agents can take calls directly with their computer, desktop phone, or even on-the-go by routing calls to their mobile phone. And then the best part is a ticket is automatically created with every call, and recorded transcripts are embedded into that ticket. You won’t lose any details from a call. For the customer, there’s no more having to hunt around for that scrap of paper containing the vital details from your call. For the agents, there’s no more having to track down which agent took the original call or the need to bounce a customer around from agent to agent.

Sounds like an attractive solution for a company in need to bring up a contact center quickly. Most impressed with how Zendesk Voice offers screen-pop, call recording, and automatic transcription of voicemails, all based in the cloud.

And at $0.05 per minute — phone number (no toll-free numbers yet), voicemail transcription, and call recording included — this is close to a no brainer for a business looking to expand its customer service options without having to commit to hardware and software purchases for a premise-based solution.

Siemens Enterprise announced OpenScape Cloud earlier this year at Enterprise Connect 2011, but just recently picked inContact to be its cloud partner for EMEA. The deal entitles Siemens to distribute inContact’s cloud contact center software in the EMEA markets as “OpenScape Cloud Contact Center” and to resell inContact products in the U.S., Latin America, and APAC markets. In return inContact receives a minimum cash infusion: $5 million in 2012 and $10 million in 2013.

Great for inContact customers, great for inContact partners. Stock price jumps a little. High-fives all around.

Something seems off to me, though. First, we all know how buzzworthy cloud services are these days. It appears that every vendor needs a cloud offering in order to compete in today’s market. In February Siemens OpenScape Cloud was unveiled when most of its competitors have already signed up cloud customers. Then it took four months to find a partner to provide the product in its primary market region, EMEA. Well, according to the press release inContact still has to “establish the cloud infrastructure in Europe required to support this new agreement.” My interpretation: As of June 15, the cloud isn’t ready yet in Europe.

Second, with so much money being poured into cloud services by eager companies in recent years, inContact’s sales performance is lackluster at best. Revenues have been stagnant quarter after quarter, year after year. With about $10 million in cash (as of 1Q2011), the $5 million Siemens investment next year represents a 50% boost in liquidity. No doubt that the money will be used to expand operations, but something has to be done about the persistent negative cash flow, especially in this economic climate.

Third, with a market cap of just upwards of $150 million, why didn’t Siemens Enterprise make an outright acquisition? Backed by conglomerate Siemens AG and private equity firm The Gores Group, Siemens Enterprise sure has the funds to do so. In an interview by Sheila McGee-Smith:

Asked why an equity investment instead of an outright purchase of inContact, [Siemens N.A. CMO and President Chris Hummel] says Siemens is walking before they run. The equity investment ensures that inContact has the cash they need for what hopefully will be a rapid acceleration of their business, especially in EMEA. Siemens Enteprise CEO Hamid Akhavan’s seat on the inContact board helps ensure that Siemens has the appropriate governance and control.

Is Siemens really serious and committed to the cloud? It is definitely not “running” in this case, but I’d much prefer it at least “power walking.” It’s more like “crawling” compared with others in this space. And throwing inContact $15 million over two years seems somewhat conservative considering how innovative and competitive cloud services are. It’s as if the company doesn’t have full faith in inContact — maybe just 90% faith.

Both Siemens Enterprise and inContact are winners in this deal because they can now boast a complete cloud portfolio anywhere across the globe. However, what’s troubling to me are inContact’s financial situation and, in my opinion, Siemens’ reservation at the negotiation table, which could have a detrimental effect on the execution of this partnership vision. In this instance the future does appear a bit cloudy.

The press release:

SALT LAKE CITY (June 15, 2011) – inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS), the leading provider of on-demand call center software and call center agent optimization tools, today announced that it has entered into a worldwide distribution agreement with global unified communications leader, Siemens Enterprise Communications. In addition, an affiliate of Siemens Enterprise Communications has made a strategic investment in the company.

Under the new commercial agreement, Siemens Enterprise Communications will be the exclusive master distributor for the inContact cloud contact center software portfolio in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and will deliver the solutions under the Siemens Enterprise Communications “OpenScape Cloud Contact Center” brand name.  Siemens Enterprise Communications will also resell the inContact portfolio in the U.S., Asia Pacific and Latin America.  inContact will establish the cloud infrastructure in Europe required to support this new agreement and will enable and train the Siemens Enterprise Communications team to independently sell, implement and support its global cloud contact center customers. According to the agreement, Siemens Enterprise Communications is committed to pay a minimum of $15 million of net software revenue to inContact over a 2-year timeframe, with $5 million committed in 2012 and $10 million committed in 2013.

Said Mariann McDonagh, Chief Marketing Officer for inContact, “We are pleased to be selected by Siemens Enterprise Communications to power its global cloud contact center offering, as it underscores inContact’s leadership in the growing cloud contact market. With more than 3,000 sales and support personnel as well as 3,000 channel partners around the world, the Siemens Enterprise Communications team is uniquely positioned to help inContact drive significant growth in the next several years. We look forward to working with Siemens Enterprise Communications over the next several months to train their front and back office personnel for their market launch later this year.”

Siemens Enterprise Communications, a joint venture of Siemens AG and the Gores Group, is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise unified communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions and supporting services. With a presence in more than 100 countries, Siemens Enterprise Communications provides comprehensive communication and collaboration solutions for organizations of all sizes. Siemens Enterprise Communications currently holds number one market positions in Europe, Latin America and India, and the company’s telecommunication solutions are used by 75% of the Global 500.  Siemens Enterprise Communications has more than a million enterprise customers in virtually every industry sector.

“After a lengthy due diligence process, we were pleased to select inContact to power our cloud contact center offering,” said Chris Hummel, Chief Marketing Officer and President of North American operations for Siemens Enterprise Communications.  “We believe that our recently announced OpenScape Cloud Solutions, combined with the inContact cloud contact center platform, will provide a market-leading and powerful unified communications and contact center for our joint customers and partners around the world.”

An affiliate of Siemens Enterprise Communications made an investment of nearly $24 million in restricted common stock of inContact at a price of $3.32 per share.

“This equity investment will provide inContact with the strong balance sheet and financial capability required to continue to grow our cloud business and further strengthen our market leading position,” said Paul Jarman, inContact CEO. “Furthermore, this renewed financial strength will enable us to extend our network and platform capability to effectively support enterprise customers and partners around the world.”

Siemens Enterprise Communications CEO, Hamid Akhavan, software and telecommunications veteran and the former COO at Deutsche Telekom Group, will join the inContact Board of Directors.

Concludes Jarman, “This highly strategic relationship with Siemens Enterprise Communications marks the beginning of a new era of accelerated global growth and visibility for inContact. We have never been in a better position, both financially and technologically, to capitalize on the massive opportunity before us and we continue to actively develop additional potential partnerships that will expand our presence across the globe.”

Conference Call Information
inContact will host a conference call to discuss these developments later today at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time (1:30 p.m. Pacific).

Dial-in Number: 1-800-894-5910
International Dial-in Number: +1-785-424-1052
Conference ID#: 7INCONTACT

About inContact
inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS) helps call centers around the globe create profitable customer experiences through its powerful portfolio of cloud-based call center software solutions. The company’s services and solutions enable call centers to operate more efficiently, optimize the cost and quality of every customer interaction, create new pathways to profit and ensure ongoing customer-centric business improvement and growth. To learn more, visit www.inContact.com.

Safe Harbor Statement: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking information made on the Company’s behalf. All statements, other than statements of historical facts which address the Company’s expectations of sources of capital or which express the Company’s expectation for the future with respect to financial performance or operating strategies, can be identified as forward-looking statements. Such statements made by the Company are based on knowledge of the environment in which it operates, but because of the factors previously listed, as well as other factors beyond the control of the Company, actual results may differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. (For the complete statement, please click here.)

inContact® is the registered trademark of inContact, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

¹The common stock of inContact sold in the transaction has not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements.  This is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of any offer to purchase any securities of inContact.

 

Who’s Caas and what’s she doing with Cisco?! Who knows! But Verizon today unveiled an interesting cloud-based offering with a dash of Cisco goodness: unified communications and collaboration-as-a-service, or UCCaaS.

Big Red is most proud of its high-IQ network infrastructure, the pipes that carry bits and bytes of voice, video, IM, etc. And together with applications from the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution, or “Chocos” (okay, I made that up), Verizon aims to help enterprises in search of implementing UC&C save on cost and deployment time as well as offer flexibility.

Together with mobile UC clients from Cisco (Nokia and iPhone) or Verizon (Android with dock) to complete the UCCaaS offering, Verizon is welcoming enterprises with open arms to adopt this cloud service from end to end.

The benefits of cloud services are well researched and documented, but Verizon is well aware of the business reality: it’s rare that an enterprise elects to go fully cloud. More often than not, it makes no sense for a company to scrap all its on-premise gear in favor of a complete cloud migration. That’s when Verizon’s UCCaaS can offer the greatest potential because of its hybrid capabilities, according to Tom Daniel, Group Manager, UC&C Product Development and Management.

Verizon has even had to rethink its pricing strategy for this cloud service. With an all-cloud package it’s easy to just throw out a big number as the final price. But to allow companies to take advantage of a cost-effective hybrid architecture, Verizon came up with a fee schedule with a la carte features and pricing. Mix and match based on your favorite dishes at the cloud UC buffet!

With all the noise about cloud services, why haven’t we heard more about the hybrid reality? Tom Dalrymple, Jr., Director of Voice Product Management and Development, thinks that virtualization is a key factor. UCCaaS uses virtualization technology from industry leader VMWare, also a close partner with Cisco. With virtualization the UCCaaS implementation can reign in costs with shared hardware and resources, yet offer enough flexibility with customization with dedicated application instances.

To me this announcement is also about two major players — one from a data-centric heritage, the other from voice — combining forces to create a unique product to meet the UC demands of today. Granted, the distinction between voice and data has faded, but the relationship between Cisco and Verizon looks to be stronger than ever.

UCCaaS, can you hear me now?

Here is the press release:

NEW YORK – With today’s workforce becoming more global and mobile, the need for employees to remain connected to corporate resources and to each other has never been greater. To help meet this need, Verizon is introducing innovative capabilities that enhance and advance unified communications and collaboration solutions for businesses and government agencies.

The new capabilities are:

• Unified Communications & Collaboration-as-a-Service, one of the industry’s first cloud-based commercial UC&C offerings. It enables businesses and government agencies to facilitate enterprise adoption of UC&C in a fixed or mobile environment with predictable per-seat pricing. New capabilities include seamless call transfers from fixed to mobile phones and the use of “presence” technology, such as instant messaging, to initiate audio, Web and intra-company video conference calls both in and out of the office.
• Mobile UC Client, which is designed to extend business telephony solutions to mobile handsets. It is available with a docking station that enables workers to replace their traditional desk phone with a single mobile device that can access advanced UC&C features, whether workers are in or away the office.

“We’re putting our leadership in cloud, UC&C and mobility to work for our customers,” said Farooq Muzaffar, vice president of enterprise network and communications solutions with Verizon. “It’s all part of our ‘everything-as-a-service’ strategy to help our customers achieve better business outcomes by making information and collaboration available virtually anywhere, anytime.”

The new offerings, available to U.S. customers this spring, will be able to work together to deliver a comprehensive cloud-based UC&C solution, or they can be purchased separately to meet specific business requirements. Visitors to the Enterprise Connect Show, taking place this week in Orlando, Fla., will be able to view demonstrations of Verizon’s new Unified Communications-as-a-Service offering, featuring the Mobile UC client, which has been named a finalist in the Best of Enterprise Connect competition at the trade show.

Cloud-Based UC&C Takes Flight

Verizon Unified Communications & Collaboration-as-a-Service combines popular applications from the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution within Verizon’s high-IQ network and data center infrastructure to quickly and cost-effectively provide UC&C capabilities to multiple employees across an enterprise. Since the dedicated enterprise applications reside in the cloud, organizations can activate employee subscriptions to some or all of the available services, as needed, and pay for the services on a per-user basis.

The state of West Virginia is among the first customers to test-drive an early version of the solution, helping Verizon to determine the specifications for the version that will be commercially available.

According to Eric Schoch, Cisco’s group director, Voice Technology Group, “Through the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution, Cisco is enabling Verizon to provide cloud-based solutions that offer unmatched levels of deployment flexibility without compromising capabilities. By working with Verizon, we’re able to help them quickly and cost-effectively offer comprehensive unified communications and collaboration solutions to their customers.”

Later this year, Verizon will roll out a hybrid offering – also based on a per-seat subscription model — for customers that still require a fully dedicated environment and want both a cloud- and premises-based solution. A December 2010 Gartner report, UC ‘in the Cloud’ and On-Premises: Examples of Hybrid Solutions notes, “Many enterprise planners think of cloud and on-premises options as mutually exclusive; however, increasingly, enterprises are deploying elements of a UC solution functionality as a blended hybrid of these two options.”

UC&C to Go

Verizon’s Mobile UC Client solution provides a fixed and mobile, single-device solution, and offers a variety of features including single reach and voice mail numbers. In addition, the other new offering, Unified Communications-as-a-Service, can be accessed on a variety of smart phones and tablet devices from other providers to support a wide range of business requirements.

Verizon also offers a suite of Managed Mobility solutions and professional consulting services to help customers develop and employ the best strategy and path to UC&C and mobility for their specific organization. Specifically, Verizon can assist enterprises in the transformation from their current environment, and support integration with existing capabilities in addition to customization.

Verizon is a global leader in driving better business outcomes for mid-sized and large enterprises and government agencies. Verizon combines integrated communications and IT solutions and professional services expertise with high-IQ global IP and mobility networks to enable businesses to securely access information, share content and communicate. Verizon is rapidly transforming to a cloud-based “everything-as-a-service” delivery model that will put the power of enterprise-grade solutions within the reach of every business. Find out more at www.verizonbusiness.com.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, NASDAQ:VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America’s most reliable wireless network, serving 94.1 million customers nationwide. Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America’s most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers innovative, seamless business solutions to customers around the world. A Dow 30 company, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of more than 194,000 and last year generated consolidated revenues of $106.6 billion. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

VERIZON’S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts, high-quality video and images, and other information are available at Verizon’s News Center on the World Wide Web at www.verizon.com/news. To receive news releases by e-mail, visit the News Center and register for customized automatic delivery of Verizon news releases.

Media Contacts:

Maria Montenegro

+1-703-886-6063

maria.montenegro@verizon.com

Debbie Lewis

+1 610-257-7974

debbie.lewis@verizon.com

 

We all know that Skype is readying a 2011 IPO, and TechCrunch has uncovered what appears to be a hiring frenzy at the VOIP company for cloud and Web engineers:

We spotted these job postings on Skype’s website, indicating that the company is looking to build a team of cloud and web technology engineers. According to the postings, these staff members will “build an infrastructure capable of supporting hundreds of millions of users.” The products, will deliver “voice, video, chat and presence” to the web and “enable radically new Skype applications.”

A source with knowledge of the matter has confirmed that Skype is indeed building a team to work on cloud products and will be launching a number of web-based applications in the near future.

This area is where Google reigns as it was able to roll out Google Voice and later integrate it within Gmail seamlessly. A cloud-based Skype would surely attract more consumers because the Web is so accessible, but it’s also clear that Skype aims to lure enterprise customers with the collective power and scalability of the cloud.

The question is, How many Google and Cisco engineers will Skype be able to poach?

John Stepp, President of Free Tech Consultants, shares some thoughts after his visit to the Governor’s Office of Customer Service in Atlanta last week.

I had the pleasure of attending CCNG’s meeting at the Governor’s Office of Customer Service last week in Atlanta and it made me think of all the parameters surrounding the cloud-based contact centers.  But before I get to those thoughts, I have to say that I was also struck by how well run the GOCS contact center is.  The caller experience has been transformed from a frustrating maze of calls to different acronym agencies to one where callers are funneled to a frontend group of agents that have the tools to direct callers to the proper destination with handoff.  I was also impressed by the camaraderie and the leadership of the contact center.  This is truly an example of a well run government agency improving the lives of the citizens they serve.

So the first order of business in any contact center is how well the center is run, from the proper routing of calls to the tools the agents have at their disposal to the attitude of the agents and the desired outcome of the entity involved.  So is cloud-based contact center technology better or worse in achieving these goals?  There is no simple answer, but here are some thoughts to digest.

Your contact center must above all be reliable.  The network you use is key and failover provisions whether cloud or premise based must be airtight.  The redundancy and reliability of the equipment utilized is extremely important, more so for cloud-based contact centers routing to a facility.  And make no mistake, there are certain manufacturers of contact center equipment that are much more reliable than others.

You need access to a variety of tools to allow for changing needs and better analytics.  For example, how easy is it for you to add or subtract agents?  For many cloud-based services this is an advantage.  Are there a variety of tools available for you to use when you need them at a reasonable cost?  This will vary between the cloud-based services, but for premise equipment you can do just about anything if you have the money to devote to it.  How well will the analytic tools work for you?  Typically premise-based equipment will give you a tighter integration.  But of course pricing for these tools has to be factored in.  Since cloud-based tools are typically less expensive per agent, there is a trade off for the tighter integration that premise-based tools give you.

And how much time must be spent in programming the contact center and its tools?  Logically, the cloud-based call contact center will save you time, but that depends on the cloud-based vendor and the availability of the resources they have.  Just as with premise-based equipment, if you go ultra cheap, at some point you are going to find out why it was ultra cheap.  Conversely, just because you pay the extra bucks for what you think is greater reliability or versatility, you may get more headaches and more cost at the same time.  That is why an unbiased consultative approach to new contact center technology and upgrades is vital to making the best decision for any organization.

In the ever changing world of technology and economics, vendors, whether cloud-based or premise-based are a lot like sports teams.  Some years a team outperforms and is a great bet and some years they end up in last place disappointing everyone.  That is why picking the right vendors and technology is both an art and a science.

Wonderful. Another TLA in the world of telephony: SAX, or Services Access Exchange. Jim Burton, CEO of CT Link, shares his prediction:

We are at the very early stages of the office phone evolution, but it is easy to predict that in the future the majority of office phones will be wireless. This will dovetail with the evolution of how these devices get connected – the role traditionally played by a PBX. In the white paper I predicted a new Connection Model – how we will communicate based on various use cases. In very simple terms, a series of SIP servers – at home, in the office and in the cloud, will communicate to connect users to each other and provide them with access to information.

What does this mean for the future for the PBX? Well, the PBX as we’ve known it will disappear, as it evolves into a Services Access Exchange (SAX). The SAX will know where you are, what devices are available near you and the capabilities of those devices, such as display size, bandwidth, etc.

But for this to occur, the carriers/service providers need to evolve their strategy, as do the vendors providing call control functionality. Some early signs of a shift are visible, although it may be another 5-10 years before everything is in place for this prediction to become a reality.

That’s quite a prediction considering PBXs have been around for decades and are the results of millions of dollars of R&D investment. I’m less optimistic on the time frame, though — 20 years out would be my bet. If COBOL can still play a crucial role in today’s financial transactions, then I don’t see the PBX going away that easily in tomorrow’s telecom market. Even today, instead of ripping out COBOL code and rewriting in another modern programming language, most solutions revolve around adding API layers between the COBOL code and other service modules. Similarly, customers are less inclined to lift and rip their PBX hardware or software to replace it with something else. Maybe SAX-like features will start to exist in PBXs gradually, but the traditional PBX will still have its place in the enterprise.

Gary Kim at TMCnet has an article on “How much can telecommuting cut carbon footprint?” which offers some insight into the cost savings related to not having to commute to a corporate office:

Lots of people these days are interested in telecommuting, at least in part because of its ability to reduce carbon footprint. Assume that a 100-person company could allow telecommuting three days a week.

Also, assume that employees commuting an average of 33 miles one day to reach their workplace, and that those employees switch to telecommuting three days a week. Also assume that all those avoided trips are taken by automobile.

That enterprise can avoid producing 6,351 pounds of hydrocarbons, 47,362 pounds of carbon monoxide, 3,146 pounds of oxides of nitrogen and 943,124 pounds of carbon dioxide, while saving 47,773 pounds of gasoline each year.

That analysis uses an average fuel economy of 21.5 miles per gallon.

Assume a fuel price of $2.75 per gallon. Workers save $750 in avoided fuel costs each week. Over a month those employees commuting three days a week save $3,250 in fuel costs and over a year will save $39,000 in fuel expenses.

That’s just the savings for the employees. There are savings for the company, too.

Now applying to the contact center business, is there a way to reduce carbon footprint?

Does a cloud-based contact center solution reduce carbon footprint? Not necessarily. Although there are immediate cost savings associated with deploying a cloud-based IVR, the solution provider still has to power its (massive) infrastructure and employ a sizable operations staff to keep the place running.

What about outsourced agents? Although this lowers your headcount and having to provide office spaces, it’s merely shifting the carbon footprint away to the outsource vendor. Plus, most of the time these vendors are far away — sometimes in India, Latin America, or the Philippines — where they pay even less attention to reducing carbon footprint. Their agents still have to commute to work and maybe use older computer equipment which draws more power.

What about on-demand agents? This is the business model for companies like LiveOps which has a platform for companies to expand and contract their contact center workforce based on demand. Most of these agents are home-based, so they save costs on commuting. However, they still have to power their PCs and broadband equipment, as well as home heating/air. Not so much of a reduction?

And during a solution implementation? Odds are you are flying in consultants from other places to work on your project. Air travel is definitely not carbon friendly. If your company has a green initiative and yet rely heavily on flown-in contractors, then you ought to raise this issue to executives. The company may have bought the greenest technologies, but still deficient in executing a green project plan.

Factors such as globalization, economics, and implementation make it difficult for a contact center to reduce carbon footprint significantly. Is there hope? It’s up to the companies to come up with their green initiatives and make sure everyone, top to bottom, is on board. Company processes and policies should be aligned to facilitate the execution of green initiatives: vendor selection, hardware procurement, telecommuting policy, travel policy, facilities management, etc. If enough companies insist on reducing carbon footprint in their contact centers, then the vendors will pay attention to this demand and adjust accordingly.

The recent brouhaha between Internet behemoth Google and communist China isn’t quite about Google’s “Don’t be evil” corporate motto, even though Google is spinning it that way. According to Google’s analysis of the cyber attacks, they originated from within China and aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists:

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

The cyber attacks are a perfect opportunity to further Google’s reputation as a corporate darling. China is an easy target — after all, who can forget the Tiananmen Massacre, beaten Tibetan monks, and detained Falun Gong followers? But by removing the geopolitical filter in all of this, it’s really about the ongoing debate between the Cloud vs. Premise application paradigms. And Big G has a lot at stake here.

Google has been the poster boy of cloud computing. Its massive data centers and network infrastructure are of mythical and legendary proportions, needed to support all of its cloud applications: search, Gmail, Google Voice, Google Apps, etc. It has maintained that using these cloud-based apps are secure.

In fact, soon after President Obama and his staff moved into the White House, they discovered inadequate hardware and software to do their jobs — even basic email operations. Google was able to provide Gmail as a temporary solution.

And in September 2009, the White House announced a partnership with Google to build Apps.gov to offer cloud-based applications to federal agencies:

This dedicated cloud will feature the regular Google Apps suite, which includes Gmail, Docs, Talk and a number of other productivity and collaboration products. The applications suite is delivered as an alternative to traditional offerings from Microsoft and IBM, the big players in business software of this kind, and should provide significant cost savings upfront but also because there is no need for additional infrastructure.

At the center of the cloud vs. premise debate has been security. Obviously with hardware and software off-premise, a company has less control over the security aspects. The success (albeit limited) of the cyber attacks on Google further underscores the skepticism of cloud computing opponents.

Take note when you are choosing a cloud or premised based IVR platform. You have just as much at stake as Google.