Magic Quadrant for Interactive Voice Response Systems and Enterprise Voice Portals, 2008

Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00154201, Steve Cramoysan, Rich Costello, 18 February 2008 RA1 05192008

Organizations are increasingly adopting voice response solutions based on Internet standards and a voice portal architecture. Leading vendors are improving integration between voice self-service and live-agent functions, and reducing the complexity of developing and operating solutionOrganizations are increasingly adopting voice response solutions based on Internet standards and a voice portal architecture. Leading vendors are improving integration between voice self-service and live-agent functions, and reducing the complexity of developing and operating solutions.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Providing self-service functionality is an important strategy that will help call center managers balance costs and quality of service. Leading companies require their customer service operations to provide increased automation and smooth integration from automated self- service to live-agent-handled tasks. They also need tighter integration between channels, and the ability to respond to the fast-changing application needs of the call center business. These business drivers are, in turn, leading to greater use of speech recognition and a shift to standards-based platforms and Web-based architectures for voice portals. They are also increasing the need for improved tools to enable call center staff to reconfigure applications without the help of technical staff.

Functional differences between vendor platform products will erode, and vendor consolidation will continue. Differentiation will be based more often on integration in two directions. First, voice response is becoming a part of the call center portfolio, with the routing function and voice response increasingly being sourced and integrated by the same vendor. Second, the voice channel will be integrated more frequently with the IT infrastructure and Web self- service, with the same business rules and application determining routing and responses for all channels. Established vendors will continue to dominate the market. However, some less- well-established vendors – such as Envox Worldwide, Holly Connects and Voxeo – will differentiate themselves by focusing on specific market segments, providing them with tailored capabilities and services.

Organizations should review their voice response portfolio. They should look at how they build, deploy and operate these applications in light of changing needs, and consider when a shift to next-generation platforms will offer a compelling business case. As many legacy platforms are approaching their “end of life,” companies should review their voice response platforms and tool road maps, and their choice of strategic providers. 2 MAGIC QUADRANT Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Interactive Voice Response Systems and Enterprise Voice Portals, 2008 Market Overview The primary driver for enterprise investment in voice response platforms is the strong business case for challengers leaders call center self-service applications. These solutions enable customers to perform tasks via the telephone that would otherwise require a call center agent and, Genesys Telecommunications as a result, they can deliver a provable and often sizeable return on investment. Solutions can be applied to customers, employees and others Nortel Avaya requiring assistance. Intervoice Two key technologies that enable solutions to fulfill Aspect Software Cisco these business demands are speech recognition and Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML). Speech recognition provides a better user interface that can support a wider range of applications than IBM touch-tone interfaces that restrict input to digits Holly Connects entered on a phone keypad. VoiceXML, an Internet

ability to execute Envox Worldwide standard protocol, encourages hardware that is Syntellect independent of a specific application server. This Voxeo leads to an “ecosystem” of applications from different developers that can be deployed on a range of different vendor platforms, without having to be completely rewritten. The shift to a voice Interactive Intelligence portal architecture for voice response platforms, which is similar to a Web application architecture, allows companies to create more easily voice and niche players visionaries Web channels that use the same underlying business application. completeness of vision As adoption of these approaches has matured, the As of December 2007 complexities and costs of developing and maintaining Source: Gartner (December) them have become more apparent. Successful vendors focus strongly on reducing the complexity of application development, improving the management and reporting functions, improving analytics, and providing better Although there have been some high-profile public campaigns and integration between channels and between live-agent and self- customer reaction against voice automated systems, the service tasks. They should also provide support for voice over fundamental challenge remains that call managers must balance Internet Protocol (VoIP) standards, such as Session Initiation quality of service with cost of service. Voice self-service solutions Protocol (SIP) and Call Control XML (CCXML), and drive standards can help call center managers achieve an optimum balance, that will decouple application execution from the development although applications should be chosen carefully and solutions tools. They also have a strong third-party ecosystem of application developed with consideration of human factors to ensure a good partners, solution providers and hosted service providers to enable customer experience. Effective tools and a third-party ecosystem customers to select a blend of deployment models to meet their are important contributors to delivering good solutions. An needs. Leading vendors support multiple media, such as video increasing awareness of the potential for unified communications streaming in addition to voice, and are evolving their platforms (UC) to extend the call center throughout a company, and to its toward a service-oriented architecture supporting Web services. business partners, is causing leading self-service vendors to put

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted December 2007 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose

© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although Gartner’s research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. 3 forward a vision for how voice response functionality fits in with Decide on the sourcing approach that best fits your objectives and UC. Leaders provide clear road maps for how today’s new consider these alternative sourcing options as needed. solutions integrate with a UC architecture. Added Market Definition/Description Two vendors have been added since our last Magic Quadrant: Voice response platforms are systems that provide voice access to Holly Connects and Voxeo. information and applications, and they can perform complex call routing based on information provided by the caller. Gartner Holly Connects started by addressing the needs of carriers and provides two distinct classifications of voice response platform: has evolved its products and go-to-market strategy to address the needs of large enterprises for a carrier-grade, scalable, • Interactive voice response (IVR) – An application engine built distributed, software-only platform based on strict adherence to on a proprietary platform. IVR solutions include an application industry standards. development environment, a runtime engine and the physical telephony access interface cards within a single platform. The Voxeo is a privately held company offering an IVR platform – hardware platform may be proprietary. Application Prophecy – built on standard hardware and open standards, with programming interfaces are proprietary and there is a limited attractive pricing targeting the application developer community partner ecosystem providing packaged applications and with free downloadable software. It addresses the needs of professional services for the platform. developer-led projects that want a small-scale solution up and running cheaply that can be scaled up as needed. Its go-to-market • Voice portal – A system, based on Internet standards and strategy differs from that of most other IVR vendors. open hardware platforms, providing telephony-based access. Such systems do not require that the application development Neither vendor is constrained by the need to support a legacy or runtime environments be included in the core platform that installed base or to provide a migration path for that base. Both provides the call access ports. A voice portal architecture is offer a software-only platform that meets the needs of different similar to a Web application architecture, and allows the stakeholders in an enterprise. application and the server on which it runs to be independent of the voice-processing function and the hardware that supports it. Leading voice portal solutions support VoIP Dropped standards, such as SIP, and have a strong partner program of Two vendors that featured in our 2006 Magic Quadrant have been application providers, development and operations toolkits, and dropped from this update: Microsoft, with its Speech Server analytics. Voice portals provide a telephony gateway to multiple product, and Nuance, with its Voice Platform offering. resources, not just to one application. Microsoft Speech Server appeared in previous versions of the Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Magic Quadrant for IVR and Enterprise Voice Portals. Microsoft Speech Server is no longer offered as a stand-alone product. Its To be included in the current Magic Quadrant, vendors must key features have been incorporated in Office Communications have an established market presence in terms of market share Server (OCS) 2007 and Exchange 12. OCS is a broad UC offering and mind share for voice response solutions, or through offering but does not offer the features or the proven robustness necessary innovative solutions. At a minimum, the application portion of for a large enterprise contact center. The Speech Server the solution must be located on customer premises; solutions capabilities packaged as part of Exchange 12 enable Exchange to cannot be solely hosted. Vendors with solutions that require support auto-attendant functionality. applications and platforms to be outsourced are not included in this evaluation. Nuance Voice Platform (NVP) also featured in previous Magic Quadrants. Since ScanSoft and Nuance merged, Nuance’s Many service providers and network operators offer hosted and strategy has been to support existing customers of NVP, but not to managed voice response solutions. In some cases, these are offer it to others. As such, customers of NVP should be aware that hybrid premises-service offerings built on VoiceXML and IP NVP has a limited market and continued investment will probably networks. The barriers to entry are relatively low, and be very limited. For others, NVP is not an option. consequently there are many smaller providers targeted at specific regions or markets. Evaluation Criteria Vendors in the U.S. offering this type of solution include carriers Ability to Execute AT&T and Verizon, contact center outsourcers Convergys and Gartner analysts evaluate voice response platform providers on the West, and voice response service providers Tellme Networks quality and efficacy of the processes, systems, methods and (acquired by Microsoft in 2007), BeVocal (acquired by Nuance in procedures offered to support a strategic platform for voice 2007), TuVox and LiveVox. In Europe, vendors include Cable & response applications. As the key application area is the contact Wireless and Eckoh in the U.K., Prosedie and Jet Multimedia in center, we pay particular attention to how the offering enables France, SNT Multiconnect and DTMS Solutions in Germany, and contact center performance to be competitive, efficient and Ydilo in Spain. In Asia/Pacific, vendors include Telstra and SingTel. effective, and to increase revenue, retention and reputation. Ultimately, an IVR vendor’s “Ability to Execute” rating is based on These services are not designed as premises-based enterprise its ability and success in capitalizing on its vision. voice portal solutions, so they are not considered for this Magic Quadrant. 4 Completeness of Vision offering that is focused on a segment of the market, may be limited Gartner analysts evaluate voice response platform providers on in some functionality or is only generally available in limited regions. their ability to convincingly articulate logical statements about Customers that are aligned with the focus of a Niche Player can current and future market direction, innovation, customer needs find the provider’s offering strong in other areas, such as and competitive forces, as well as on how well they map to the responsive customer service, so Niche Players can be a good fit. Gartner position. Ultimately, a voice response platform provider’s “Completeness of Vision” rating is based on its understanding of Vendor Strengths and Cautions how market forces can be exploited to create an opportunity for the provider and for its clients. Aspect Software Strengths Leaders • Aspect has a large and long-standing call center customer base, and many of its customers regard Aspect as their default Leaders are high-viability vendors with a strong voice response call centre infrastructure vendor. offering, significant market share, broad geographic coverage, a clear vision of how voice self-service needs will evolve and a • Aspect can provide choices of best of breed, stand-alone IVR proven track record of delivering IVR offerings. They are well- Aspect Customer Self Service (CSS) and a suite-based positioned with their current product portfolio and are likely to approach, Aspect Unified IP (UIP). continue to deliver leading products. They have a sound partner • Its services and support organization uses well-established best ecosystem providing voice response applications, tools and practices for deployment of IVR and speech solutions, and services for their platforms. They typically have a strong contact provides capable self-service application development. center offering, with good integration between this and their voice • Consider Aspect UIP for its IVR functionality in midsize response platform. Leaders do not always offer the best-of-breed deployments. Aspect CSS customers should consider version solution for every customer requirement. However, overall, their 7.2 to support VoiceXML applications built with VoiceXML products are strong, with some exceptional capabilities. Studio, or third-party tools. Additionally, they provide solutions that offer relatively low risk.

Challengers Cautions • Aspect’s primary investment focus is on its suite solution, UIP. Challengers are vendors with strong market capabilities and good Although CSS and UIP share code, Aspect has a reduced solutions for specific markets but, overall, their products lack the focus on extending CSS as a best-of-breed IVR system. breadth and depth of those of Leaders. Their solutions do not offer a clear vision of how customer needs for voice response • IVR revenue has been declining, and this will limit Aspect’s applications are evolving, and they are not as innovative or ability to continue investing in products and channels as the advanced as those of Leaders. Challengers may also have limited IVR market matures. third-party voice response application partners. Vendors in this • UIP is weak on scalability and multitenancy features, and quadrant have either a strong installed base of legacy IVR or a limited for large-scale, complex IVR requirements – especially if strong base of call center customers to exploit for sales of voice required to support internally hosted services for multiple portal platforms, and they are typically high-viability vendors. departments or business units. • The quality of project management and professional services Visionaries engagements can be inconsistent. Check carefully the Visionaries demonstrate a clear understanding of the voice services staff assigned to projects to ensure they have the response market and provide required competencies. key elements of innovation, Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria illustrative of the future of the market. However, they have limited ability to execute due Evaluation Criteria Weighting to one or more of the following: inability to influence Product/Service standard a large portion of the market; a limited installed base of Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization) high legacy IVR or limited presence in the call center market; lack Sales Execution/Pricing standard of a multiregion sales channel and support capabilities. Also, Market Responsiveness and Track Record standard they do not have the funding to execute with the same Marketing Execution standard commitment as vendors in the Leaders quadrant, and Customer Experience standard may be higher risk. Operations standard Niche Players The vendors in this quadrant Source: Gartner provide a voice response 5 • Aspect lacks an enterprise telephony offering, which will limit its • Cisco marketing exploits Cisco’s strong brand and position in opportunities, especially with companies that prefer a single- networking and IP telephony to establish its credibility to vendor, end-to-end approach to communications solutions. provide IVR/portal offerings. • Strong multivendor application development tools from the Avaya acquisition of Audium give Cisco access to a customer base of competing IVR platforms, and allow Cisco to articulate its Strengths migration path to CVP. • Avaya offers two IVR platforms: Interactive Response (IR), • Consider IP IVR for IVR requirements with Cisco Unified which supports legacy Conversant and VoiceXML applications, Contact Center solutions, where 128 ports are sufficient for and Avaya Voice Portal (AVP), which offers a Web services future capacity. For large-scale enterprises and service approach to voice self-service. providers planning to migrate to an all-Cisco communications • The company is a long-term vendor of contact center infrastructure, consider CVP with Unified Intelligent Contact solutions. For its many customers, Avaya’s IVR solutions offer Management (ICM) for a network-based IVR platform in front of easier integration. multiple different vendor switches, and where IVR treatment on • Avaya has a good presence in all regions and is stronger in the edge of a Cisco network offers compelling benefits. Asia/Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa than other competitors that also have their headquarters in the U.S. Cautions • Dialog Designer (DD), Avaya’s Eclipse-based application • CVP requires Cisco network gateways, and is rarely deployed development tool, will be extended to enable development of without ICM, limiting vendor choice and increasing dependency communications applications to be extended into live-agent on Cisco, which results in greater cost. functions. Skills developed in the contact center will be • For virtual call centre routing, the solution also requires Cisco transferable to broader contact center and UC solutions. ICM, which adds cost, complexity and dependency on the • Transferable licensing from IR to AVP lowers the barriers for robustness of this platform and the network interconnects. customers planning to migrate from Avaya’s legacy Conversant • Separate tools and management reporting applications for CVP platform to AVP. and ICM increase the complexity of managing these products. • Consider IR if you have a legacy Avaya IVR infrastructure and • The skills and competencies to specify IVR and sell it to, and wish to port applications onto a platform that supports deploy it in, large enterprises are available only through VoiceXML. Consider AVP if you have migrated to IP and are specialized Cisco partners. This may mean the customer has to ready to adopt a Web-based solution for voice self-service. manage a system integrator in addition to its preferred communications integrator. Customers should look for Cautions Authorized Technology Provider (ATP) CVP. • Avaya IVR solutions are rarely deployed outside of Avaya- • IP IVR scalability is limited and there is no easy migration path based call centers. from IP IVR to CVP. • Avaya solutions pricing is higher than that of some vendors. Although the pricing of AVP is competitive, IR is priced at a premium. In addition, the solution price may include the costs for other necessary upgrades, so it is important to compare like with like. • Avaya employs a mix of direct and indirect fulfillment for IVR Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria services. Avaya’s mainstream telephony services staff may have limited experience of complex call center deployments, Evaluation Criteria Weighting and some projects suffer from not having the right blend of skills required. Market Understanding standard

• Avaya has recently been privatized. Although Avaya has Marketing Strategy standard reiterated its strategy for IVR, accelerated business model transformation and reorganization in its legacy business areas Sales Strategy standard may disrupt some plans in the IVR area. Offering (Product) Strategy standard Cisco Strengths Business Model high • Cisco’s financial strength enables it to fill out its Vertical/Industry Strategy standard communications portfolio, providing Cisco with long-term viability. Innovation standard • Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal (CVP) offers distributed IVR at the edge of the network, which provides benefits for Geographic Strategy standard branch office networks and for creating virtual contact centers. Cisco also offers Unified IP IVR packaged with its Source: Gartner contact center offerings for smaller deployments. 6 Envox Worldwide Cautions Strengths • Genesys solutions are often expensive compared with those of • Envox has well-established relationships with value-added other vendors. resellers, system integrators and developers offering IVR- • Indirect fulfillment means Genesys often relies on third parties based applications. to deliver the range of required project management and • Envox has an open-standards-based platform, Envox 7, which implementation services. Occasionally gaps appear between it is promoting to its large customer base of legacy CT the various service partners and Genesys, such as when Application Development Environment (CT ADE), acquired service partners fail to deliver on expectations set by from Intel. Genesys, which increases the project management burden • Envox offerings are price competitive. The company is often on customers. flexible on terms and has a capable technical support service • Genesys does not directly offer a hybrid premises/hosted that is responsive to product feature requests. service offering, which limits its ability to fulfill customer • Envox offers customers a choice of turnkey solutions or the requirements for overflow and bursting without using a flexibility to build and maintain their IVR/voice portal solutions managed services partner. themselves, which could lower startup costs. If you decide • It’s getting harder to differentiate on technology. To maintain its on the latter approach, ensure you have the required edge, Genesys will have to continue to strengthen its technical expertise. differentiation on other attributes, such as sales and marketing. • The merging of GVP and VGP could distract development Cautions efforts from other initiatives. • Envox is a small privately held company with, compared with • Genesys could be made independent via a spinoff from Alcatel- many competitors, limited resources in all functions. In Lucent, which adds risk for customers that place significant particular, the quality of project management varies depending value on its Alcatel-Lucent relationship. on the specific staff that support your account. • It has a limited sales and marketing organization, with limited Holly Connects resources, that is struggling to establish the Envox brand. Strengths Brand visibility is vital among business stakeholders for Envox to be considered for many opportunities. • Holly Voice Platform (HVP) is a carrier-grade, scalable, distributed, software-only platform based on strict adherence to • Envox lacks a large customer base for contact center call industry standards, such as VoiceXML, SIP, Media Resource routing and telephony solutions. This will limit its ability to Control Protocol (MRCP), Speech Synthesis Markup Language succeed in the contact center market, although it does have a (SSML) and Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE). strong customer base of legacy computer-telephony integration products through its channels. • Strong multitenancy and redundant architecture features support customers offering an internal hosted service with sophisticated reporting, speech-recognition call logging and Genesys Telecommunications recording, resource monitoring, and real-time tools for port Strengths allocation, service configuration, and service provisioning and • Genesys consistently leads the way on features and decommissioning. functionality for implementing voice self-service within a • Holly is a new entrant and is included in our Magic Quadrant multichannel strategy, integrated with live-agent support. for the first time. It is competing aggressively and will price its • Genesys Voice Platform (GVP) offers strong support for offering to win new business. Its engineering support multitenancy features to support internal hosted service organization is responsive to customer needs. deployments. The acquired VoiceGenie Platform (VGP) • Consider Holly if you are a large and/or global organization with customer base and technology gives Genesys additional a requirement to service diverse telephony applications for presence in embedded applications and with service providers. multiple business units. GVP and VGP will be merged into a single product in 2008. • Its products provide strong support for standards, including Cautions SIP and VoiceXML, and for emerging standards, such as • Holly Connects has limited brand awareness and presence CCXML and State Chart XML (SCXML). outside its home market of Australia, and needs to establish its • There is a clear focus on software-centric products with an credibility in the major markets. Holly has investment plans to indirect fulfillment model, which has created an extensive address this, but it needs to develop these plans further and portfolio of channel partners, including leading call center successfully execute them. integrators that give Genesys preferred vendor status. • Holly is a small company with limited resources in North • Genesys provides multivendor support for third-party telephony America and Europe – the largest markets – and there is a and automatic call distribution with extensive proof points, risk that its resources will be stretched if it grows too much allowing GVP to be deployed in any call center environment. too quickly. • Consider GVP when advanced voice portal functionality with • Its limited customer base means Holly does not enjoy deep integration between live and self-service, and between customer references in all enterprise customer segments. channels, is required. 7 • Holly lacks a broader call center and communications • VoiceXML support is a recent enhancement and is not yet well infrastructure offering and customer base to which to sell. proven and established in Interactive Intelligence channels.

IBM Intervoice Strengths Strengths • The core strength of IBM’s IVR offering, WebSphere Voice • Intervoice Voice Portal is a competitive and scalable voice Response (WVR), is its integration with WebSphere, allowing portal product, providing a migration path from Intervoice’s IBM to offer a combined Web and voice-processing solution. legacy IVR offerings. • WVR exploits the management and reporting capabilities of the • Intervoice provides an end-to-end services offering including WebSphere portfolio and its proven and reliable operating platform deployment, applications design and development, system, Advanced Interactive Executive (AIX). system integration, and speech professional services. Intervoice • IBM can provide deep technical expertise to solve support also provides hosted and managed services options. issues. And it has a proven ability to provide a high-reliability • It has a large customer base and a proven record of integration scalable platform. in multivendor environments. • Consider IBM WVR if you are committed to AIX, and your • The company has a strong track record and experience in requirements are for a large-scale platform with strong delivering IVR and speech applications through packaged integration with WebSphere. applications, complemented by service engagements. • Consider Intervoice Voice Portal for an open, scalable, switch- Cautions independent IVR platform, with proven application packages • Features, reporting and integration are packaged for large- and services expertise. scale applications, such as telecom, rather than for enterprises, for which an IBM WVR solution would probably be Cautions overengineered and expensive. • Intervoice’s reputation as a specialist IVR vendor, with a limited • IBM’s go-to-market and product strategy limits its opportunities portfolio of broader contact center and UC offerings, limits its for WVR, which in turn undermines market confidence in IBM’s reach in opportunities where the customer prefers a single- long-term commitment to it. vendor portfolio. • IBM has no telephony or call center product offering, nor an • Its narrow focus means that, in most deployments, Intervoice installed base, so all WVR deployments have to be integrated has competing vendors in the account and its solutions require with third-party infrastructure. integration with these vendors, which can add cost and • WVR runs only on AIX, and is not supported for other complexity to integration between live and assisted service. operating systems. • Project management and support responsiveness occasionally fail to respond to the impact of service outage on customers’ businesses. In addition, there is some evidence of price rises Interactive Intelligence for voice self-service consulting and professional services. Strengths • In the U.S., its biggest market, Intervoice’s preferred • Interactive Intelligence offers a suite solution, Customer engagement model is direct, which limits its third-party partner Interaction Center (CIC), which includes IVR functionality. Live- network and restricts choice for customers. agent and multichannel features are well integrated, and the suite provides a common application development and management and operation system. It also offers a stand-alone Nortel IVR solution, CIC IVR. Strengths • The CIC system is relatively easy and intuitive to use with minimal • Nortel offers a range of proven and reliable IVR solutions to training, and allows companies to create applications quickly. address the needs of customers whose requirements vary • CIC can support time division multiplexing and SIP integrations, greatly in size and complexity. and can be implemented as an all-software solution using • The company has a large installed base of PBX call center Intel’s Host Media Processing Software. customers to sell to, a large base of IVR customers and a long- • Consider Interactive Intelligence’s CIC IVR for small to midsize term commitment to IVR and self-service solutions. applications where plans call for a future migration to a • Nortel’s professional services and system integration team is bundled suite platform. substantial in size and well proven in delivering IVR-based solutions to enterprise call centers. Cautions • Nortel has a clear vision of how its IVR platform will migrate to a • Interactive Intelligence is limited in size and has low brand UC environment and become its general-purpose Media Server, awareness among large enterprises. which will help investment protection. • CIC IVR application development tools lack features for large- • Consider Nortel Media Processing Server (MPS) if you are scale developments, and third-party tools and applications are looking for a scalable and well-proven platform offering strong not supported. 8 integration with back-office applications and systems, a proven • It does not have a third-party application ecosystem, which services capability and a road map toward UC. limits choice of application provider and system integrator. • Its investments are in developing its broader contact center Cautions suite offering and in IVR applications, rather than its core • Nortel’s third-party partner ecosystem for application IVR platform. development, system integration and tools is weaker than that • The company has limited presence outside North America and of other leaders, so offering less choice to customers. the U.K. • Nortel’s MPS platforms depend on some proprietary • CSS lacks multitenancy features that are often required for components. Overall, these platforms are not as open as stand-alone IVR platforms in large enterprise environments. some others. • Nortel’s MPS IP software-only platform will not be available until Voxeo late 2008. Strengths • Although Nortel’s legacy platforms enjoyed success in • Voxeo’s Prophecy IVR platform is a pure software platform, multivendor environments, they are now rarely selected for non- downloadable free with two ports from its Web site and Nortel call center environments. Nortel’s strategy is oriented optimized to make it easy for developers to start developing toward retaining customers rather than winning new ones. applications. • Nortel’s platform upgrade proposals tend to carry premium • The company offers a hybrid premises/hosted model – prices – customers should ensure they implement a licensing the platform to organizations to build and host their competitive bid process. own applications – and also offers a hosted service to support • Some customers report dissatisfaction with Nortel failover and high-volume “bursting.” project deployments. • Prophecy is Web-centric and adheres strictly to standards such as VoiceXML and SIP. It allows Voxeo solutions to use Syntellect commodity components and to exploit Web services and Web Strengths developer skills for application development. • Syntellect Continuum Self-Service (CSS) is a switch- • Packaging of Voxeo’s own basic speech recognition and text- independent, standards-based IVR platform. to-speech engines with the platform reduces costs – especially during development. • The company offers proven applications and has a strong professional services team with expertise in integrating IVR and • Choose Voxeo Prophecy if you need a low-cost, scalable, speech applications in enterprise call centers. standards-based platform and you have strong application developer and system integration skills in-house. • Consider Syntellect CSS if its applications meet your self- service requirements and the benefits of a single vendor for application and platform are compelling.

Cautions • Syntellect has low market share in large enterprise IVR and contact center deployments, which will hinder its ability to invest in the platform to compete successfully in this market in the long term. 9 Cautions Acronym Key and Glossary Terms • Voxeo is a small, privately owned, innovative company. If it proves to be successful, it could be acquired. This would be AIX Advanced Interactive Executive likely to cause some disruption to the product road map and AVP Avaya Voice Portal business model. CCXML Call Control XML • Voxeo is relatively new to premises solutions and will need to CIC Customer Interaction Center adapt its primarily hosted services business model. CSS Continuum Self-Service • Limited reporting and tools functionality means that customers CSS Customer Self Service will probably require third-party tools and reporting packages to CVP Customer Voice Portal be licensed. GVP Genesys Voice Platform • Voxeo’s brand has limited visibility among business decision ICM Intelligent Contact Management makers. Choosing Voxeo is a developer-led decision. IR Interactive Response IVR interactive voice response • Voxeo has focused on the U.S. Its international operations are MPS Media Processing Server only just establishing a platform in the U.K. from which to NVP Nuance Voice Platform address Europe, the Middle East and Africa. OCS Office Communications Server SIP Session Initiation Protocol Vendors Added or Dropped UC unified communications We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and UIP Unified IP MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, VGP VoiceGenie Platform the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may VoiceXML VoiceExtensible Markup Language change over time. A vendor appearing in a Magic Quadrant or VoIP voice over Internet Protocol MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily WVR WebSphere Voice Response indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or a change of focus by a vendor. 10

Evaluation Criteria Definitions

Ability to Execute

Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor that compete in/serve the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills, etc., whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization’s financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue investing in the product, to continue offering the product and to advance the state of the art within the organization’s portfolio of products.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor’s capabilities in all pre-sales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, pre-sales support and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor’s history of responsiveness.

Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization’s message in order to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This “mind share” can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements, etc.

Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.

Completeness of Vision

Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers’ wants and needs and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen and understand buyers’ wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision.

Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling product that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor’s approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature set as they map to current and future requirements.

Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor’s underlying business proposition.

Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticals.

Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.

Geographic Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the “home” or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.