CRM News: Call Centers: CosmoCom Updates Universe Contact Center App

CosmoCom Updates Universe Contact Center App

By Erika Morphy
CRM Buyer
09/12/06 7:15 AM PT

A proprietary NAT Traversal capability has been introduced in V4.6 that CosmoCom said is more secure and universal than earlier approaches. NAT Traversal addresses connection issues in networks that use network address translation. This addition to V4.6 is aimed at contact centers that rely on a distributed agent force, said Steve Kowarsky, CosmoCom executive vice president.

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CosmoCom has introduced Version 4.6 of its Universe contact center software platform. New enhancements include improved reporting functionality, IP Centrex integration, and new networking functionality -- namely, the introduction of a new, proprietary NAT (network address translation) Traversal capability.

Also, this version continues to take advantage of the application's switchover from Crystal Reports to the Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Reporting Services platform earlier this year, Steve Kowarsky, executive vice president, told CRM Buyer. The new platform enhances both the speed and content of the reports, he said.

Two Groups

Universe contact center software users tend to fall into two groups, according to Kowarsky. One core user base consists of telcos that provide hosted call center offerings using CosmoCom's product as a platform. The other group is made up of large enterprises that run in-house contact center operations on the Universe platform.

The primary enhancement to the reporting functionality is a permission scheme that adapts each report to the access privileges of the person who is viewing it. Integration with IP Centrex phones provides users with greater flexibility in their call management.

"For example, when there is a need to refuse an incoming call, the agent can just hit the 'Do Not Disturb' button on the IP Centrex phone, and our system will pick that up and make the agent unavailable, as if it had been done on our Agent client," said Ari Sonesh, CosmoCom's chairman and CEO.

New Networking Options

A proprietary NAT Traversal capability has been introduced in V4.6 that CosmoCom said is more secure and universal than earlier approaches. NAT Traversal addresses connection issues in networks that use NAT. NAT involves changing the source or destination addresses of IP packets as they pass through a router or firewall, usually to allow multiple hosts access to the Internet using a single public IP address.

Kowarsky said this addition to V4.6 is aimed at contact centers that rely on a distributed agent force. "Its purpose is to make call center agents completely location independent," he said.

CosmoCom is including some of the features of its new release in Service Pack 5 (SP5) for V4.5, as well as in the general rollout of the product. SP5 will include V4.5's IP Centrex integration enhancements and NAT Traversal capability.

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