Siebel Energy 7.7 will enable energy and utility companies to improve the customer enrollment and service experience, streamline customer care, and optimize field services while simplifying deployment, upgrade, and maintenance functions.

"Our goal is to provide solutions that help Energy companies efficiently deliver consistently positive customer experiences," said Dan Ford, Vice President and General Manager, Siebel Energy.

The technology and support needed to successfully run contact centers is constantly changing as contact centers evolve from the historic single call center to multiple, remote centers. With the increasing number of remote centers, often located half a world away, new solutions are being developed to address the many challenges facing contact centers today.

Avaya Contact Centers, supported by the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, address many of the challenges of the new contact center era including:

Maximum Uptime: Citrix streamlines application management and facilitates technical support in a real time environment across several servers.

Rapid Application Deployment: The MetaFrame Access Suite is installed on a server and deployed quickly to Avaya desktop agents across the enterprise.

Dial-In and Remote Connectivity: MetaFrame Access Suite enables enterprises to deliver information to Avaya contact center agents anywhere in the world.

Management and Integration: The new collaboration will enable companies to diagnose and resolve IT problems and increase data security. Application updates can be completed in a single session on the server, instantly upgrading all desktop agents on the server.

Mixed Desktop and Platform Configurations: Citirx software supports application access on nearly every type of client device.

Legacy Desktops with New Applications: Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite is compatible with any desktop hardware, enabling clients to extend the life of their current hardware.

Agent Support and Training: Citrix enables a virtual training environment in Avaya contact centers.

Avaya contact centers, supported by the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, will enable enterprises to increase contact center productivity, ensure data security and reduce overall operational costs.

"As a system integrator specializing in contact centers, my firm has worked with many customers who have implemented Citrix access infrastructure software to centrally manage applications and deploy them to their agents," said Bruce Calhoon of SimpliCTI. "These customers have expressed the strong desire to add Avaya Interaction Center to their applications running on Citrix, so they can speed deployment and make it easier for agents to access the full range of contact center resources. They'll be delighted that the Avaya contact center solution is being optimized for Citrix deployment."

Avaya joins Cisco, Microsoft, Centra Software, WebEx Communications and Polycom as a major competitor in the Internet-based telecommunications market, a market that is expected to generate some $9.4 billion in revenue by 2008.

The transaction is expected to close within 60 days.

Perhaps Bakey's transition is a sign of the times. A recent study by AMR Research, a market research firm, projected SAP would take the No. 1 spot in CRM software by the end of 2004.

India continually proves to be an integral part of the strategy to propel companies ahead by offering significant cost savings and world-class development centers.

Cisco has also completed the acquisition of Parc Technologies, Ltd. of London. Parc Technologies, a privately held company, develops traffic engineering (TE) solutions and software for routing optimization. Initially, Cisco will implement planning and optimization tools for Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) TE, the technology that directs IP traffic using a label system.