Global business communications company Avaya has acquired contact centre-as-a-service provider, Spoken Communications, in a cash transaction which includes over 170 patents and patent applications.
The New York-listed company’s deal to buy Spoken Communications follows on the heels of a co-development partnership formed by Avaya and Spoken in 2017 to provide CCaaS solutions to Avaya’s business process outsourcing customers. Avaya recently exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“With this acquisition, Avaya’s large contact centre customer base around the world will have a clear migration path to the cloud,” said Jim Chirico, president and chief executive of Avaya.
“Customers can retain all the functionality of their existing premises-based technology and seamlessly migrate that functionality, at their pace, to achieve all the benefits of cloud.”
{loadposition peter}Spoken’s cloud-native, multitenant architecture is seamlessly integrated with Avaya Aura and Elite technologies. Avaya says that, as a result, it also provides a robust architecture for both Avaya’s omnichannel offerings, such as Oceana, and its Unified Communications as a Service solutions.
Under the deal, customers will gain access to Spoken’s specialised agent quality software applications and services, as well as Spoken’s IntelligentWire contact center automation solutions. IntelligentWire uses artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies on live voice conversations to reduce after-call work, drive more intelligent responses and gain deeper insight into customer sentiment and experience.
“This transaction is a critical step in positioning our customers, partners, and new Cloud business for increasing success,” said Mercer Rowe, senior vice-president and general manager, Cloud, for Avaya.
“We are now moving at cloud speed, capitalising on Avaya’s momentum to give our customers greater choice and flexibility in how they buy and consume our solutions, with the same outstanding experience whether it’s on premises, in the public or private cloud, or a hybrid model.”
When the transaction closes — slated for the second quarter of fiscal 2018 — Rowe will lead the combined Spoken and Avaya cloud teams tasked with fostering innovative growth and cloud differentiation in the marketplace.
Mohamad Afshar, president and chief executive of Spoken, said, “This is an exciting time to join the Avaya family. Our successful partnership has demonstrated that working together, Avaya and Spoken can deliver a compelling cloud-native CCaaS portfolio for Avaya customers that offers every customer, from small and mid-market businesses to global enterprises, a seamless path to a modern cloud-based contact centre.”