Avaya invests in 23 pc of Agile

Telecommunications technology giant Avaya has bought 23 per cent of Auckland company Agile Software for an undisclosed sum.

The deal will see Agile's software incorporated into Avaya's Contact Centre Express product, aimed at the lucrative medium-sized call centre market in the United States.

Agile will boost the number of developers it employs to 17 as a result of the agreement.

The company started life as a division of Fisher & Paykel with the New Zealand agency for PABXs and call centres made by AT&T.

AT&T spun off its systems and technology business as Lucent, which in turn spun off its enterprise network and business telephone systems division as Avaya.

It dominates the enterprise call-centre market, with 72 per cent of sites in the United States involving more than 400 seats. Under 500 seats is considered mid-market in the US.

Agile general manager Tony Jayne said the mid-market worldwide was estimated to be worth US$4.3 billion ($6 billion). There is no dominant vendor.

He said when Agile decided to build its call-centre product, it used Avaya's platform, rather than create one that would also work on switches from other vendors such as Cisco and Nortel.

"We build an application layer above the communications layer, so you don't need to pay for routing twice, as you use Avaya's routing agent," he said.

Contact Centre Express will handle interactions with customers via voice, web-chat or email, and can route interactions and customer data to agents based on skill levels. It includes interfaces with common business applications such as Outlook, reducing implementation time and cost. It can also link agents at multiple locations, allowing people to build up virtual call centres.

Agile Software worked closely with long-time customer the Automobile Association to develop its system. Features include the ability to match caller numbers with membership information, so a screen pops up with the member's details, allowing agents to process calls faster.