In this press release, Aspect Communications tells the world that virtualization will be a big part of its efforts to bring UC applications into enterprise contact centers. But instead of turning to cloud-based resources from partner and part owner Microsoft, the company sees much more promise in leveraging the cost- and space-saving initiatives of the 120,000 enterprise IT organizations worldwide that are deploying instances of VMWare. There is wisdom in this bi-furcated virtualization strategy, but it does signal a departure from the tight linkage between Aspect’s Unified Communications strategy and the Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (OCS).

For over a year, Aspect’s Unified Communications initiatives have been tightly linked with Microsoft OCS to replace (or virtualize) PBXs, conference bridges and interactive voice response (IVR) platforms. When speech applications are involved, they are to run in the remote server farms operated by Microsoft’s Tellme business unit. This approach has apparently left a gap in the strategy for deploying Aspect’s portfolio of workforce management and other contact center applications “in the cloud.” For the time being, VMWare will fill the gap nicely. The existing base of enterprise customers already deploying VMWare-based solutions makes a very good prospect base for Aspect.

The fact that Aspect has decided to partner with VMWare demonstrates that Microsoft will have to work hard to gain share of cloud based spending. We’re already witnessing a tremendous amount of innovative mashing up of telco, voice and self-service apps in clouds operated by Amazon, Voxeo and Angel.com (still part of MicroStrategy). VMWare is a much different animal because contact centers and phone applications are not considered its forte. Still, all of these solution providers justify their sales on the reduction in capex, opex and space requirements that result from virtualization.

Categories: Articles

Tags: customer care, Cloud Computing, Aspect, speech applications, VMWare