Hauppauge, NY, September 8, 1999 – CosmoCom, Inc. announced today the availability of CosmoCall Universe, the next generation of its award-winning pure IP web-enabled call center software. The new version enhances the functionality, user interface, and underlying architecture of the award-winning CosmoCall system that was already the premier multimedia, multi-channel interaction center product. CosmoCall Universe now provides unmatched capacity and high availability for seamless integration of Internet and telephone callers, and automatic distribution intelligence that blends live calls and messages.

"CosmoCall Universe represents both an evolutionary step and a revolutionary one," says Stephen Kowarsky, Executive Vice President of CosmoCom. "It is evolutionary because it encompasses many of the feature improvements and user interface enhancements our CosmoCall 2.x users have been suggesting and requesting, without dramatically changing the basic scope of the product as a multimedia, multi-channel interaction center. It is revolutionary because it reflects some significant architectural improvements in the platform. These changes may not be visible to most users, but they strengthen the platform in fundamental ways, and provide the foundation for what we believe is the highest capacity and highest availability call center system in the world - not just among IP-based or PC-based systems, but across all available technologies."

System Architecture
The CosmoCall Universe system architecture sets a new standard as the basis of mission-critical interaction centers.

"We initially installed CosmoCall because it offered the most robust features in terms of ACD and multi-format customer interaction," says Tom Hardiman, Director of Special Projects, Nicholville Telephone. "Universe’s clustered server fail-over architecture and T-1 digital interface provide us with the best fault-tolerance and redundancy of any ACD solution on the market, period."

Universe’s architecture highlights include:

• Scalability - Multi-server, distributed intelligence architecture provides near-linear scalability to 8,000 agents, 50,000 simultaneous calls/messages, 200 call arrivals per second.
• Fault Tolerance, Redundancy, and High Availability – Combines techniques of clustering, disk redundancy, hot-swapping, and n+1 server redundancy to provide mission critical performance.
• Security - MSMQ for communication transport and security for Servers and Agents, HTTPS and SSL for secure caller data communications.
• Application Integration via COM+ components

System Management

• Virtually unlimited queues, agent groups, skills and priorities. Unlimited many-to-many links between groups and queues.
• Application-specific configuration and customization.
• Industry standard scripting languages.
• Remote administration, management, and backup.
• Real-time statistics.

Telephone Connectivity

• Expanded EI and Euro ISDN interface support
• Expanded IVR support
• H.323 compliance for all VoIP

• Agent: Lower bandwidth for remote agents, wrap-up and unavailable reason codes, AutoComplete for canned phrases, URL with canned phrases, replaceable parameters in canned phrases, configurable icon bars.
• Administrator: Remote administration, multiple administrators, improved UI.
• Supervisor: Telephone and chat coaching, barge-in, and silent monitoring, real-time statistics and browser-based historical reports, remote management, team objects, improved UI.

"We selected CosmoCall Universe because it is the only software product out there that could help us realize our vision of the virtual call center," says Antti Mikkola, Development Manager, Sonera Group PLC.

Industry Analyst Feedback
"CosmoCom is on the leading edge of the wave in Web/call center integration. The company is one of the first, if not the first to create a pure IP call center, thus allowing the call center to be distributed. CosmoCom’s latest product, CosmoCall Universe, shows attention to detail in providing scalability and Internet/intranet functionality." Says Paul Strauss, Senior Analyst Telecom Software, IDC.

Pricing
The pricing for CosmoCall Universe is unchanged from previous versions. An entry-level system is about $40,000 for ten-agents, and the budgetary cost per full-time agent in larger configurations is about $4,000.

About CosmoCom Inc.
CosmoCom, Inc., developer of CosmoCall Universe, is a major enabler of two important industry trends – Live Internet Customer Care, and Distributed Call Centers. With CosmoCall, eBusinesses and their customers worldwide can connect in multimedia, multi-channel interaction centers that include telephone, voice and video over the Internet, keyboard chat, IVR, e-mail, voice mail, and fax. CosmoCall’s pure IP technology also provides unlimited geographical distribution of call center operations with unprecedented cost-effectiveness, unmatched capacity, and very high system availability. CosmoCom has received an array of awards since its genesis in 1995, including Call Center Magazine’s coveted Editor’s Choice Award, Product of the Year Awards from several publications, and recognition by the Harvard Business School Club.