Unified communications solutions provider
Aspect has reportedly acquired
Quilogy Inc., an IT services firm headquartered in Saint Charles, Mo., for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition adds collaboration capabilities to Aspect's unified communications services portfolio. It also gives Aspect far greater capabilities in terms of integrating its software and systems with those of Microsoft.
Quilogy is a leading Microsoft National Systems Integrator and its staff is intimately familiar with all the major Microsoft platforms including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Microsoft .NET. What’s more Quilogy brings extensive experience to Aspect in the areas of healthcare and the public sector.
'Quilogy's expertise in Microsoft SharePoint and the broader collaboration space, coupled with Aspect's global unified communications leadership and strategic equity alliance with Microsoft, are a formidable combination in the enterprise technology market,' said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect, in a release. 'Plus, the opportunities for innovation with our unified communications applications for the contact center will mean new product capabilities, customized solution development, and tighter ties to enterprise resources for our contact center customers. This supports a logical evolution of Aspect's vision of transforming enterprise business processes by leveraging Microsoft software platforms.'
The deal enables Aspect to offer unified communications and collaboration services (including IT and SI services), including strategic planning, design and architecture, user experience and interface design, implementation and hosting, user adoption and training, custom development, and business process consulting.
One key element of the deal is that is that it will help streamline and speed the integration of the Microsoft SQL Server analytics platform with Aspect's unified communications applications for the contact center, as well as its Unified IP and PerformanceEdge platforms, for Aspect’s customers.
'Unified communications and collaboration are game-changing technologies for the enterprise and the contact center,' said Irwin Lazar, vice president for communication and collaboration research at Nemertes Research. 'More organizations are recognizing that the value of UC and collaboration comes from applying it to business processes through existing and custom applications. However, while 69 percent of companies say unified communications return on investment is important or vital, only 18 percent have been able to quantify any benefit. Aspect's acquisition of Quilogy will help customers identify and implement the business benefits of UC.'
According to the press release, Aspect plans to retain Quilogy's 200 employees and it will operate as a subsidiary. Quilogy’s experienced team of application development and IT services experts will continue to be led by Manish Chandak, former president of Quilogy, who will now join Aspect as a vice president of professional services.
'Quilogy has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft and is among its leading national systems integrator partners,” Chandak said in the release. “With this acquisition, we now have the scale to deploy resources across the globe to meet our customer's needs.”
'We are known, not only for our expertise in the collaboration space and market leadership with Microsoft SharePoint implementations, but for a strong delivery culture and cohesive, end-to-end processes,” Chandak added. “Unified communications and collaboration has the potential to revolutionize business processes and workflows across the enterprise and the contact center, and Aspect is leading the way by expanding its ability to help customers apply these new technologies across key functional areas such as customer interaction and acquisition, payment processing, data analytics and integration, and more.”
Aspect made news recently when it
announced that it had won two awards from consulting firm
Frost & Sullivan in India. Specifically, Frost & Sullivan honored Aspect with its award for “Price Performance Value for Unified Contact Centre Solutions,” which is presented to companies offering solutions and services that provide the highest ratio of value to cost. In addition the firm recognized Aspect as the leader in Outbound Systems in India for the sixth consecutive year.
