Analyst Perspectives

I recently wrote a blog post about how Enghouse Systems is expanding its portfolio of contact center vendors, and another detailing more about what capabilities its products support. I noted that its acquisition trail wasn’t over and that it was in the process of acquiring Zeacom. Although not quite evident from the Zeacom website, that deal is now done and Zeacom is part of Enghouse Interactive. This means that Enghouse Interactive now has three major contact center products, so it was good to catch up with a Zeacom executive to learn more about how Zeacom fits in with Enghouse Interactive’s overall portfolio.

One of the primary drivers for the acquisition is likely to benefit both customers and Enghouse Interactive. As it originated in New Zealand, to date Zeacom’s main success has been in that market. The acquisition will accelerate its growth into the world market and give customers in the region better support for the other Enghouse Interactive systems. Companies that are committed to Microsoft Lync for unified communications will especially benefit as Zeacom has a contact center product that closely integrates with Lync. According to the executive I spoke to, sales of Lync are going well, and this is leading to an increasing number of Lync distributors signing up with Zeacom so they can provide integrated contact center systems. My recent benchmark research into the use of unified agent desktop systems shows that collaboration is increasingly being recognized by companies as an enabler of improved interaction handling, so I believe Zeacom has a bright future in the market.

From a purely functional point of view, Enghouse Interactive’s three products have considerable overlap, as they all support multichannel interaction management. The big difference is the target market for each product. The Contact Center: Enterprise product (formerly CIM) is aimed at the big enterprise center, Contact Center: Cloud (formerly Cosmocom) is largely for major telecom service providers that want to support outsource contact center service, and Zeacom is aimed more at the midsize center.  As time goes by there will no doubt be some cross-sharing of new developments, and various components from each of the products will find themselves integrated with the others.

As I said before, I think the major challenge for Enghouse Interactive will be to properly support all three products, both technically and functionally, so they remain competitive in the marketplace. If it achieves this, it will be able to offer a strong portfolio of products that companies should consider as they look to improve interaction handling.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director