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Tellme Partners See Substantial, Recurring Revenue Potential in a Software-As-a-Service Voice Services Model

Posted on: Tuesday, 11 November 2008, 12:00 CST

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Tellme(R), a Microsoft subsidiary and a pioneer in voice services, today announced that just four months after for the inception of Tellme's partner program, ten go-to-market and professional services partners have joined Tellme to deliver industry-leading customer self-service applications for enterprises nationwide. Go-to-market reseller partners include Aspect Software, Dimension Data, NEC Unified Solutions, Quilogy, and SpeechCycle. Professional services partners include Gold Systems, Mackraz Design, Pivot Systems, Servion, and VoxMedia.

In this time of economic upheaval across world markets, Tellme has created a partner model that creates a unique opportunity for go-to-market partners to own the customer relationship and share in a long-term revenue stream, creating stable and predictable cash flow for Tellme partners. Furthermore, Tellme's model provides a high-growth opportunity for partners; as businesses are increasingly turning towards on-demand services to help them minimize capital expenditures and eliminate the risk of running on-premise equipment.

"The Tellme partner program was designed from the ground up to provide new business opportunities for our partners," said Bob Crissman, General Manager of Partner Programs at Tellme. "In a time when many companies are experiencing financial loss, Tellme partners are increasing revenue generation opportunities by partnering with Tellme; creating cost savings for their customers and significant demand for Tellme's unique software-as-a-service-based solution."

The Tellme partner program enables partner companies to bring flexible, cost-efficient speech-based solutions to enterprise customers. The following five go-to-market partners are providing customers enterprise-class voice services:

Aspect is a market leader in unified solutions and performance optimization technologies for contact centers, and is a strategic Unified Communications partner for Microsoft. By partnering with Tellme, Aspect is enhancing speed to market of a hybrid solution leveraging a premise-based and network-based contact center offering, helping businesses realize cost savings benefits. Dimension Data plc , an IT services and solution provider specialist, helps customers plan, build, support and manage their IT infrastructures. Dimension Data applies its expertise in networking, security, operating environments, storage and contact center technologies and its unique skills in consulting, integration and managed services to create customized customer solutions. NEC Unified Solutions, a strategic partner for Microsoft, is building a Professional Services practice in the Americas to support the deployment of Tellme services for a wide variety of customers in key industries, such as Hospitality, Healthcare, Higher Education and Public Sector. NEC brings valuable development expertise in enterprise class communication solutions in contact centers, interactive voice response, and systems integration to the relationship. By combining NEC's extensive background in delivering high-quality voice applications, with the robust capabilities of Tellme's on-demand offering, the relationship with Tellme offers an innovative approach to helping customers better manage their phone channel customer interactions. Quilogy is a nationally recognized Microsoft National Managed Partner and is working with Tellme to provide customer care and speech solutions for enterprise customers across specialty verticals. SpeechCycle is an industry pioneer in delivering Rich Phone Applications (RPAs) on-demand for U.S. and global service providers and enterprises. SpeechCycle's contact center automation applications span the full spectrum of natural language speech and multi-modal innovation, from enterprise-connected troubleshooting to personalized phone portal services, and are fully compatible with Microsoft .NET and the Microsoft Customer Care Framework. SpeechCycle SaaS RPAs are powered by TellMe's secure and scalable platform.

In addition, five new professional services partners are working with Tellme to provide voice-enabled speech applications to global enterprises in key vertical markets. With this program and a well-developed set of applications, Tellme Professional Services partners will continue to reap the benefits, year after year, evening out their cash flow and creating a predictable revenue stream. The five partners are:

Gold Systems is a unified communications specialist and a Microsoft Gold Certified Managed Partner, developing voice-driven communications solutions utilizing IVR, text-to-speech and speech recognition. Offerings include packaged applications and customized contact center solutions built on Office Communications Server 2007, and unified messaging deployment and telephony interfaces to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Gold Systems' software has supported over a billion telephone calls resulting in huge savings for hundreds of organizations around the world. Mackraz Design is a professional services consultancy with a track record of leading high-impact design projects for well-known clients, both consumer and enterprise. Areas of specialized expertise include voice user interface design, mobile and web interaction design, user research and early-stage design strategy. Pivot Systems is a global provider of information technology and R&D services that operates with the primary mission of providing the most effective solutions to its customers, playing a pivotal role in their growth and success. Pivot Systems gives customers the flexibility of onsite and offshore outsourcing with a frameworks and IP enhanced approach, fulfilling their needs in the areas of software and systems product development, systems integration, application development, software re-engineering and engineering services. Servion specializes in Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions that help companies provide a superior customer experience. With more than 400 customers and more than 1000 installations in 41 countries, Servion's products and solutions handle in excess of 500 million voice/fax/ACD/Web/e-mail interactions per month. Servion takes a consulting-led approach to optimize customer interactions for its clients, which include global organizations in industries such as banking and finance, telecommunications, business process outsourcing, transportation, retail, and hospitality. VoxMedia specializes in requirements planning, application design, and "tuning" for speech-based solutions, and has completed many successful projects in financial services, automotive, telecom, healthcare and travel. About Tellme Networks. A Microsoft Subsidiary

Tellme fundamentally improves how people use the phone to get the information they need every day. By combining web applications and a voice interface, Tellme's services let businesses deliver robust functionality on the phone to the consumers they serve. People simply say what they want and get it. Tellme's platform powers next generation customer self-service, logistics/supply chain, healthcare services, financial services and ordering for some of the largest companies in the world. Today Tellme manages billions of calls every year and is used by more than 40 million people every month. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Tellme is a Microsoft subsidiary.

Tellme; Microsoft Corp.

CONTACT: Carly Godden of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, +1-503-443-7000,carlyg@waggeneredstrom.com, for Tellme; or Danielle Hamel, Sr. Mgr, PublicRelations, Business Solutions Division of Tellme Networks, A MicrosoftSubsidiary, +1-650-693-0576, dhamel@tellme.com

Web site: http://www.tellme.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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