MY YEAR END WISHES TO ALL

By Ari Sonesh, CEO - I'm writing my year end article as I sit on a plane coming back from Vienna, where we just exhibited at HP Communications World. It was a great event, and a Vienna is a wonderful city to put you in the Holiday spirit.

I am always amazed at how quickly the year passes. It seems like yesterday that I was writing my 2007 end-of-year column for the CosmoChronicle. I hope that you have enjoyed this publication throughout the year as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.

2008 was a great year in many ways despite the troubled economy (see my article on Innovation in Economic Downturn in the October issue). Our product continued to grow and improve with the release of CCU5.2 earlier this year, and with the great development work on the exciting release CCU 6 coming early in 2009. Our CosmoCommunity of customers, partners and end users grew nicely, with a mix of new service providers and enterprises, many of whom joined us at CosmoCommunity 2008 in New Orleans last May to learn, network and have a lot of fun doing it. As I predicted at the beginning of the year, we saw further validation of our Consolidation 2.0 value proposition with many large enterprises benefitting from our ability to enhance the customer experience while reducing TCO in the contact center

Success is only possible when there are great people on all sides of the equation. As we celebrate this holiday season, I would like to thank all of you, and to extend my warm best wishes to the people who contribute to CosmoCom's success:

• Thanks to our customers and end-users around the world for choosing CosmoCom to power your contact centers.
• Thanks to our partners who sell, support and add value to our product.
• And of course, thanks to the hard-working people at CosmoCom who put their hearts and souls into bringing the world the best contact center platform available today.
   

CHUNGHWA TELECOM EXPANDS COSMOCOM CCOD PLATFORM

Strengthens Ability to Support Internal Customer Service and
External Customer Call Center Operations via Multi-tenancy

Long-time customer, Chunghwa Telecom, which provides telecommunication and information-related services as the most experienced and largest integrated telecommunication operator in Taiwan, has significantly expanded its usage of CosmoCom's CosmoCall Universe all-IP contact center platform. The expansion will enable CHT to support both its own customer service agents and the call center operations of customers via the system's multi-tenancy. Regional customers of CHT and the CosmoCom platform include enterprises and government departments.

"Chunghwa is very experienced and knowledgeable in contact center technology, and we are happy to see Chunghwa benefit from our Win Twice value proposition to telephone companies," said Ari Sonesh, Chairman and CEO of CosmoCom. "Our platform provides not only the company's own customer support, but also serves as a source of new revenue from offering contact center as a hosted service."

Read the press release for more details.

US CONTACT CENTERS CONFIRM IP BRINGS SIGNIFICANT COST REDUCTION

New ContactBabel Survey Shows 60% Achieve Network and IT Savings

The use of IP (Internet Protocol) is yielding significant cost savings for US contact centers, according to "The US Contact Center Operational Review (2nd edition)", a recent study of over 200 contact center operations conducted by analyst firm ContactBabel. Most contact centers that have implemented IP are reporting measurable benefits. 60% of respondents report significant network and IT cost reduction, and 64% report improved ability to adjust agent configurations. The findings in the "IP and Call Handling" chapter of the report, sponsored by CosmoCom, provider of the most mature and field proven IP contact center platforms in the industry, show that large contact centers are especially likely to see IP as an opportunity for massive savings in telecommunications and network costs, and as a cost effective way to implement new functionality.

"Many contact center investment decisions emphasize short term operational cost savings", commented Steve Morrell, author of the ContactBabel report. "Our research confirms that savings opportunities with IP are significant. But our results also suggest that when considering IP contact centers, companies should think of them as enablers whose value will be realized over time in new applications and a better customer experience," Morrell continued. "In addition to flexibility in deploying agents, many respondents cited easier integration among different contact center applications, a benefit that strongly supports both agent efficiency and the customer experience.

"CosmoCom is pleased to be the sponsoring ContactBabel's excellent research," said Steve Kowarsky, CosmoCom's Executive Vice President. "The report provides strong support for our core value proposition that IP contact centers help enterprises to be more reachable and more responsive in a highly cost effective way, consolidating multiple locations, captive and outsourced operations, multiple communication channels, and multiple applications."

Download a complimentary copy of the "IP and Call Handling" chapter or the full 300 page report free of charge.

REPORT FROM HP COMMUNICATIONS WORLD VIENNA

CosmoCom's booth at HP Communications World From left: Meir Yaniv (CosmoCom), Tzipi Shovit (HP), Ari Sonesh (CosmoCom), Harel Ifhar (HP) and Alain DeCartes (HP)

During the second week of December, CosmoCom had the pleasure of taking part in HP Communications World in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria. The international event, which is part of HP Software Universe, took place 9 – 11 December at the Austria Center in Vienna.

The event was a great forum for CosmoCom to strengthen existing bonds and to develop new relationships with HP and with customers of HP who attended the event. There was no time for jet lag, as attendees and as HP executives from many countries kept the CosmoCom delegation, including CEO Ari Sonesh and SVP Meir Yaniv, busy at CosmoCom booth U2/20 and in meetings through all three days of the event.

We are all excited about the complementary fit between CosmoCom technology and the HP OpenCall Media Platform. Stay tuned for more news about that relationship soon.

KICK-OFF 2009 WITH COSMOCOM ON THE ROAD

We just wrapped up a very busy and successful 2008 event schedule with the HP show in Vienna last week.

For those of you in EMEA, especially the DACH region, look for CosmoCom at Call Center World 2009 in Berlin, Germany. We'll be waiting for you in Hall 1: 1A16 of the Estrel Convention Center to demonstrate how we can help make 2009 a successful year for your contact center.

We'll be adding more events in the coming weeks and months so keep an eye on future issues and our events page.

 BITS & PIECES: SOME VOIP FACTOIDS

IP and Home-based Agent Adoption High in EMEA
According to a recent article called "Global (Customer) Warming" in Peppers and Rogers' 1-to-1 Magazine, "IP adoption is high in Europe and Africa With European contact centers sharing many of the economic challenges that those in the United States face, many European companies are hiring home-based agents, and using IP tools to link them to their primary contact center."

HQ HAPPENINGS

Stepping Out at the HQ Holiday Party

What do you get when you mix holiday cheer and CosmoCom employees with plentiful food, drink and rockin' dance music? Must be the annual HQ Holiday party.

This year we returned to the beautiful Chateau Briand in Carle Place, NY on December 14 to close out 2008 and toast the holidays with fellow employees and their significant others in an elegant setting. Everyone who attended had a great time and we're all looking forward to an even better next year.

On behalf of all of us at CosmoCom's Melville NY Headquarters, Happy Holidays...and best wishes to all for a Great '09 !

NEW MEMBERS OF THE COSMOCOM FAMILY

CosmoCom Israel

Elinor Limor, recently became a regular, full-time member of the CosmoCom Israel QA team. Prior to that Elinor has been a contributing member of the team as an intern over the past year.

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	Call Center World - 2009 February 16 - 19, 2009 Estrel Convention Center Berlin, Germany Booth Hall 1: 1A16 www.callcenterworld.de
	RECORDED WEBINARS
	View recordings of our Webinar events including "Consolidation 2.0", "Hosted Contact Center for Outsourcers", "Contact Center On-Demand" and "Telecom Customer Care"

	SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
	Please pass this issue of CosmoChronicle on to others who might be interested. If you are not already receiving the monthly CosmoChronicle you can sign up now. This and past issue are also available in the CosmoChronicle Archives.

	TECH SUPPORT UPDATES
	CosmoCom has replaced SupportNet with a new improved support site, for customers and partners, called CosmoCom Online Technical Support. You can find the latest documentation, Hot Fix bundles, Microsoft updates that have passed QA for CosmoCall Universe deployment, discussion groups and more. In addition, you can now access your support tickets online. If you have not yet obtained your secure login information, please contact your CosmoCom representative or send support an email.

	LIAISON PROGRAM FOR CONSULTANTS
	If you are a call center industry consultant, join the CosmoCom Consultant Liaison Program for access to our consultant extranet, a dedicated newsletter for the consultant community and more...