Lucent Technologies has announced that three of its products designed to bring Internet protocol (IP) capabilities to circuit networks won Best of Show honors at CT Expo 2001 held last month in Los Angeles.
Judges singled out the Lucent iMerge Centrex Feature Gateway (CFG) and ClientCare Call Center Deluxe Edition for “taking Centrex to the next level,” while citing the EXS Converged Services Platform as “an attractive investment to cautious service providers.”
The Best of Show awards were presented to products viewed as the most innovative in their class. Judging was based on a product`s technological innovation and feature set, as well as a company`s overall contributions to the computer telephony market. Products from more than 300 top communications companies were exhibited at the show.
“Service providers and their business customers are looking for ways to take advantage of the flexibility and cost-efficiency that IP networks have to offer, while preserving their initial equipment investment,” said Ken Arndt, vice president of marketing at Lucent Technologies` subsidiary AG Communication Systems. “The need has never been greater for the kinds of adaptable, scalable solutions that Lucent has to offer.”
The iMerge CFG extends office Centrex features over packet networks, giving users a powerful voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) service. The product combines the inherent reliability of the public switched telephone network with the cost-saving advantages of packet technology. It gives carriers powerful new ways to deliver the business applications customers are demanding, including multilocation Centrex, virtual office features, seamless work environments for teleworkers and virtual call centers. iMerge CFG is a central element of Lucent`s 7R/E Packet Solutions portfolio of products designed to bring packet capabilities to both traditional circuit and converged circuit-packet networks.
The EXS Converged Services Platform enables third-party application developers to create and deliver services that carriers can offer on softswitch-based IP networks as well as existing circuit-based infrastructures. Several systems integrators are currently conducting trials of the EXS CSP.
Using the EXS CSP, service providers worldwide will be able to deploy a broad and growing array of IP-enabled services from more than 100 developers, helping them generate additional revenue, while protecting their existing platform investments.
ClientCare economically transforms Centrex telephone systems at small- and medium-sized businesses into sophisticated call centers. It allows Centrex subscribers to cost-effectively manage their customer contacts with many of the professional sales and service capabilities traditionally associated with much larger companies through a switch-independent, network-based application.
With ClientCare Call Center DE, enterprise customers get inbound call handling and routing that can be blended with sophisticated outbound campaigns and a comprehensive Internet Suite of services, enabling agents to simultaneously handle voice, e-mail, fax, chat, call-back and call-through queries.
——-