O2 Opts For VoIP Contact Center

The German telecom operator O2 has chosen TietoEnator to upgrade its current customer service platform by migrating it to Voice over IP (VoIP).

O2 decided to implement an IP contact center suite tightly integrated into its business applications which company officials say will help them "lower total cost of ownership and to improve time-to-market for new products and services."

As general contractor and system integrator TietoEnator is going to develop the customer services IT product on the basis of network and contact center applications from Cisco and Genesys (News - Alert).

Customers "use their O2 products at all times of the day," according to company officials, and "expect the customer service to be available to match their working patterns and behaviors."

Industry observer James Alan Miller has noted recently that original design manufacturer High Tech Computer, the company "responsible for building more Windows Mobile handsets than any other, 80 percent," has "starting selling the TyTN Pocket PC Phone and MTeoR Smartphone under its own brand."

The company has already "severed its connections to i-mate and carrier O2 in Australia, New Zealand, and India," Miller says, quoting a statement by Prim Krithivasan, Director of Dopod's Regional Operator Division in Australia and India that "O2 doesn't have the relationship [with HTC] anymore... [and] going forward the HTC relationship won't extend to i-mate."

As Miller says, O2 and i-mate, and any other vendor HTC may decide not to built smartphones for in the future, will now have to turn to other ODMs.

With the TietoEnator deal, all customer contact media, such as telephone (mobile and fixed), customer self-service, e-mail, fax, SMS, MMS, the Web and written correspondence, will be supported by the IP contact center.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.

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