COSMOCOM CHALKS UP ANOTHER RECORD QUARTER IN 2Q 2005

2Q 2005 was the latest in a string of record quarters for CosmoCom. CosmoCom year-over-year growth was about 44% in 2004, and the company is very much on track for similar performance in 2005. Growth is global, and the revenue is coming from a very healthy mix of new customers and repeat orders from existing customers.

The quarter also marked the receipt of CosmoCom's largest single order to date, only a small part of which was recognized immediately, giving the company a nice increase in backlog and good visibility for the remainder of 2005. A noteworthy achievement for the quarter was the opening of South Africa as a new market for CosmoCom. Several of the key wins cannot be announced yet, so stay tuned for more details in upcoming press releases.

"Naturally the growth of the company and its profitability are very gratifying," said Ari Sonesh, CosmoCom's CEO and one of its founders. "Most encouraging to me is the substantial proportion of expansion orders from current customers," Sonesh continued. "A repeat order is the best confirmation that our system is satisfying the needs of our customers, and this is the only way for a company to achieve long term success."

 SOUTH AFRICA CALL CENTER SHOW A BIG HIT

SA Call Centre Solutions, a CosmoCom partner based in Johannesburg, South Africa's financial hub, recently sponsored and exhibited at the Terrapin Contact Centre World Africa 2005 conference in Sandton. The event was held on the 25th to the 29th of July 2005, and was tightly focused on the Contact Center Market.

SA Call Centre Solutions (Pty) LTD (SACCS), is a South African based call center services and technology organization and has a focus on delivering total call center solutions. SACCS hopes to become a world-class provider of well-differentiated turnkey Customer Interaction solutions, focusing on Africa, and the reawakening of the continent. 

Gasant Jacobs, Director: Business Development for SA Call Centre Solutions, delivered a key note speech, addressing the delegates on what the South African Call Centre industry needs to do to become as successful as India in the BPO space.

This conference was carefully selected to serve as the launching platform from which CosmoCom was formally introduced to South African Contact Center Solutions'  target  market. With the advent of Mobile telephony on the continent, it has led to an explosion of Teledensity in several African States. A natural by-product of this growth in telephones, is the requirement for call center services.

SACCS personnel have undergone extensive CosmoCom training. SACCS had a live Cosmocall demo system running where delegates could log in and make or receive actual calls. In addition, the now famous CosmoCom Flash videos were broadcast on a large Plasma screen.

Shlomo Harari, President, CosmoCom Israel LTD, and Vice President Sales Asia Pacific, as well as Adi Yosof, Sales & Markets Development Manager, represented CosmoCom and attended the event as guests of SA Call Centre Solutions.

This was the first industry event at which South Africans got to see CosmoCom , and it certainly made an impression on the delegates. Contact Center on Demand (CCOD) is set to take off in South Africa in a big way.

ECOCOSM EXTRANET TAKES OFF!

From its beginning just a few weeks ago, the new Extranet for consultants has grown rapidly and now boasts almost a hundred contact center industry consultants as members. "I've been surprised and delighted at the response so far," said Erik Laurence, the architect of the program.

The program was just expanded to include an Extranet for CosmoCom's VARs and channel partners. "Almost 50 people joined that in its first week," Erik reported.

We are keeping the information fresh and interesting with content like the Product Feature of the Month and the Customer Solution of the Month. "It's great to have an audience that already understands call center technology, and is genuinely interested in material that takes an in-depth approach to the subject," Erik commented.

If you are an industry consultant or a CosmoCom channel partner and you haven't yet joined this program, you are warmly invited to do so by browsing to ecocosm.cosmocom.com. Invite your friends. We will be adding benefits to the program to keep it a win-win proposition. Please be a part of it!

A VIEW FROM THE CORNER OFFICE

By Ari Sonesh, CEO - Last month, we talked about "Changing Times…Curse or Opportunity?" and reported that China's eager embrace of the latest technologies has yielded them some impressive statistics… China has 100 million internet connections, 30 million of which are broadband, and 358 million mobile phones growing at the remarkable rate of 17% per year. China is by far the world's fastest growing economy, now running at about 9% growth per annum, and showing no signs of slowing down. Companies that prepare now to do business in the changing China will reap enormous benefits in the near future. 

Just a few short weeks later comes further news that "China's Internet Network Information Centre has released statistics which show that the country is now home to 130 million internet users, making it the world's second largest internet market behind the US. The market grew by 18.4% in the first six months of the year. There were 53 million broadband subscribers at the end of June, up 23.8% from the start of the year." (Source: www.telegeography.com) 

As we said before, Change makes for interesting times; it's not a curse, it's a blessing!

PARTNERS SPOTLIGHT: BROADSOFT, INC.

Integrating Hosted PBX with Contact Center On-Demand

By Leron Polani, VP Strategic Business & Corporate Development - BroadSoft, Inc. was founded in 1998 and has established itself as the leading provider of network communications platforms. BroadSoft's VoIP application software is revolutionizing the delivery of hosted telephony and multimedia services. Its flagship BroadWorks® technology empowers wireless and wireline carriers to deliver next-generation voice and multimedia applications and advanced features that increase revenue, enhance competitive differentiation and elevate customer satisfaction. BroadSoft's family of carrier-class software products delivers the scale, open architecture and reliability that the world's leading telecommunications companies demand to serve mission-critical enterprise and residential broadband customers. BroadSoft's customer base of more than 95 network operators, including BellSouth, MCI, Singtel, Telstra, and XO Communications leads the industry with more than 900,000 lines deployed. 

Some of the benefits of a Broadsoft solution include:

• IP PBX features with carrier grade performance
• Open, standards-based architecture
• Single system for unified communications
• Operates on standard hardware · Multi-tiered administration
• Reduced operating costs
• Relocation protection
• Service creation environment

BroadWorks can be integrated with CosmoCom's CosmoCall Universe (CCU) so that you can enjoy a single, integrated VoIP environment that combines Broadsoft's world class suite of IP-PBX, IP-Centrex and IP-VPN capabilities with CosmoCom's world-class virtual call center. Service Providers offering Contact Center On-Demand can now easily enhance their offering by integrating BroadWorks with their CCU platform. Similarly, Service Providers offering VoIP application software based on BroadWorks can now enter the tornado of  the IP call center market by offering Contact Center On-Demand based on CCU, the undisputed leader in hosted call center platforms.

View the CosmoCom/BroadSoft Partner Spotlight Brochure.

Broadsoft has earned the status of certified EcoCosm Partner from CosmoCom. 
To learn more about Broadsoft and BroadWorks, please visit www.broadsoft.com.

THE CONCERTO PHENOMENON

By Steve Kowarsky, EVP - With the acquisition of Aspect, Concerto boasts that it will be the largest pure-play provider of Contact Center products and services in the world. With three major old-line call center companies under its banner -- Davox (outbound), Rockwell, and Aspect -- this boast is probably true. The Concerto phenomenon is certainly worth a closer look.

Concerto is a private company financed primarily through debt -- a mountain of it. The Aspect acquisition alone is being paid for by more than a billion dollars of borrowed money, and that does not count the hundreds of millions that took Concerto private and later financed the purchase of Rockwell. Aspect is the kind of deal you don't often see in the software industry, and there is only one explanation for it: the maintenance revenue stream. Aspect's most recent annual report shows that about 60% of its revenue in 2004 came from software maintenance. More than $200 million. Here we can begin to see what is supporting this deal in the eyes of the lenders. It isn't new sales. Software licenses for Aspect's core ACD product were less than 10% of its revenue at about $35 million.

What's going on with these numbers? They fit the characteristic profile of a mature industry: relatively small new sales, with most of those new sales being just expansions sold to the existing customers. But, a tremendous recurring revenue stream from the installed base. The price of Aspect is supported by hard math projecting increases in support fees and cost reductions. The term for this phenomenon is the well known phrase "milking the installed base."

But something is wrong with this picture. In high technology, industries don't stay mature for long. Customers can't afford to let themselves be milked. They prefer to invest in state of the art technology that can give them competitive advantages and the greatest operating efficiencies . Will Concerto's customers remain interested for long in sending money every quarter to cover the payments on Concerto's mountain of debt? More likely they will want to spend that money with a technologically advanced and debt-free company like CosmoCom that will use it on continuous improvement of what is already the most advanced all-IP unified contact center platform in the market today.

The inertia of an installed base can be tremendous, but there is nothing like such a dramatic indication of "maturity" to motivate customers to look seriously at the replacement option. We believe that the Concerto phenomenon is the harbinger of a great technology replacement cycle in the contact center industry. And the beneficiary of that cycle will not be Concerto, with its confusing array of dead-end legacy products. The beneficiary will be CosmoCom.

CONSULTANTS CORNER

By Erik Laurence, VP Business Development & Global Accounts - We're pleased to announce that two members of call center consulting firm eStrategy3, Sandra Alexa and Sid Scott, have recently gained their CosmoCom certifications. Congratulations, Sandra & Scott !

eStrategy3 believes that having the right strategy and resources to support call center initiatives means the difference between success and failure. eStrategy3 is comprised of call center consultants providing comprehensive call center management and development solutions to help grow a business while  freeing up its internal resources. With its understanding of both in-house call center and outsourced operations, as well as the CCOD model, eStrategy3 can design, implement and manage the best possible call center strategy for every situation.

eStrategy3 offers many ways to enhance the productivity and profitability of customer contact efforts including:

• Call Center Consulting
• Call Center Assessment
• Project Management
• Call Center Outsourcing
• Data Management

Since it's target market includes many companies that have small to medium sized internal sales and customer service call centers, eStrategy3 understands the value proposition that a CosmoCom-based service provider offers -- an attractive alternative to building or buying costly and complex call handling and CRM solutions. The CCOD approach offers call centers of all shapes and sizes the opportunity to leverage superior call handling capabilities without requiring a huge capital investment or dedicated IT infrastructure to run the platform. CCOD can be implemented quickly, especially with a knowledgeable support partner like eStrategy3, and its flexibility, ease of use, and customizable features make it relevant for a wide variety call center applications.

Contact eStrategy3 at www.eStrategy3.com 

If you are a call center consultant and would like to learn about EcoCosm, please see our CosmoCom EcoCosm Consultants page. Or if you know a call center consultant that could benefit from this program, please pass this invitation on to them to join our program

 BITS & PIECES: SOME VOIP FACTOIDS

Hosted IP Telephony -- InfoTech
The hosted IP telephony market is poised for serious growth. Research and consulting firm InfoTech says demand for the service will leap from $310 million this year to $5.9 billion in 2010. "Although the market potential for hosted IP telephony is huge, the service providers should not underestimate the influence of the incumbent CPE providers," says Warren Williams, senior director for InfoTech's InfoTrack for Enterprise Services. "Given the current predominance of premises-based voice platforms, enterprises are going to take a hard look at the business case for hosted IP telephony before they switch over." 
 

VOIP Growth and the Contact Center -- Analysys
In their new report entitled "VoIP versus Mobile: forecasts for the future of enterprise voice", Analysys (global advisers on telecoms, IT and media) predicts that "by 2010, 32 million corporate employees in Western Europe will be connected to VoIP..." 

According to Analysys, spend on VoIP systems and services will grow by over 17% per annum for the next five years, reaching EUR12 billion in Western Europe and, by 2010, 1.6 million corporate employees in Western Europe will have discarded their traditional fixed office phone and have only a mobile phone handset. "

New technologies and novel approaches are causing fresh disruption in the enterprise voice market as vendors attempt to deliver the new ultimate goal of enterprises: to reach anyone, anytime, anywhere," says Margaret Hopkins, the report's author. "VoIP has become the de facto future of voice systems, and, consequently, vendors are ceasing development of the older TDM (time division multiplex) systems. "

VoIP systems allow users of softphones to have their office phone wherever they plug in their laptop, and mobile solutions, including email and smart phones, can now behave as if they are extensions on the company's private telephone network (PBX)," adds Margaret Hopkins. 

However, says Analysys, enterprises cannot necessarily justify spend on VoIP outside of the contact centre unless they need a new voice system anyway. "Existing TDM equipment cannot compete with the new features but it works adequately for most situations. It is only in the contact centre, where performance is closely monitored, that upgrading to VoIP can be justified," adds Margaret Hopkins. For more details of Analysys' report, visit their website: www.analysys.com. 

WHO'S TALKING? RECENT INK

On August 1st, Newsday 's Business & Technology section announced a new mentoring program sponsored by LISTnet, spearheaded by its President, Peter Goldsmith. LISTnet's objective is to "promote Long Island as one of the national centers of excellence for software and technology solutions", and, in keeping with that goal, this new mentoring program will be a resource for high tech startups in the area.

CosmoCom has been actively involved in LISTnet for a number of years, and CEO Ari Sonesh will be heading the new Mentor Committee. In the Newsday article, Ari was quoted as saying "one of the objectives and goals we have at LISTnet is to develop the area as a high-tech area, and there is no way that we will ever be a high-tech area if we don't have enough starts-ups. On long Island we do have a lot of infrastructure, but we don't really have that many start-ups like you'd see in Silicon Valley, the Boston area, or Israel", where mentoring programs flourish.

The potential ROI to CosmoCom and the other participating high tech companies can best be summed up in Ari's words describing his motivation in becoming involved in the mentoring effort, "It's just personal satisfaction, nothing for CosmoCom… At the end of the day, a person needs more gratification than money or being successful in making money."

In late July, Ken Schachter of LIBN (Long Island Business News) interviewed CosmoCom's CEO, Ari Sonesh for a piece they call the "2 Minute Drill." These drills focus on leading businesses in the region. The results of that interview are in the article called "Heeding the Call" which was printed in the August 5th issue of LIBN. View a copy of the article.

CosmoCom is not alone in the press. A couple of our partners/customers had noteworthy news as well:

On July 27, BT announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC)'s Customer Interaction Solutions® magazine had named BT as a recipient of the CRM Excellence Award for 2005. BT's integrated multimedia CRM capability provides a turnkey solution enabling an organization to quickly and easily evolve its traditional call center -- with customer contact via telephone and fax -- to a multi-channel contact center, opening new channels for customer communications with email, text-messaging, real-time chat, co-browsing and even video. In addition to front office customer relationship management (CRM), BT's solution also delivers back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP), on a single IP-based platform. As the technology provider for both its premise-based offerings and its network-based offerings in this area, CosmoCom congratulates its partner BT on this award. 

Also in the news, India's incumbent international operator, and CosmoCom partner, VSNL, announced in July that it had agreed to buy Teleglobe, the largest international voice over IP (VoIP) carrier in the world -- and former Canadian monopoly overseas voice carrier. Should the deal meet with shareholder approval and pass regulatory review, the merged company -- which also includes the recently integrated Tyco Global Network -- would become one of the largest multinational providers of voice, Internet, and bandwidth services. As readers probably know, VSNL offers a CosmoCom-based CCOD service, and its acquisition of Teleglobe, with its formidable international transmission assets, positions the company for major growth in its CCOD offering.

NEW MEMBERS OF THE COSMOCOM FAMILY

CosmoCom Headquarters

Paulo Kuong, Jr.
Paulo joined CosmoCom on July 18th. A recent grad of Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY (with Master of Science in computer engineering, Dean List,) Paulo will be working as a Systems Engineer from the HQ office.

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	ACCE (Annual Call Center Exhibition) September 19 - 21, 2005 Washington State Convention and Trade Center Seattle, WA USA http://www.accecmp.com  See CosmoCom in Booth 423
	SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT Fall VON 2005 September 22nd Boston Convention Center Boston, MA, USA Panelist: Erik Laurence, VP Business Development & Global Accounts, CosmoCom  Topic: Boosting Call Center Productivity  When: Thursday, September 22, 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.
	RightNow Technologies 2005 User Conference October 3-6, 2005 Big Sky Resort Big Sky, Montana http://www.rightnow.com/userconference CosmoCom is proud to be a Gold Sponsor of this event.
	SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT Internet Telephony Conference and Expo IP Contact Center Summit October 26th L.A. Convention Center Los Angeles, CA, USA http://www.itexpo.com  Panelist: Roman Lewis, AVP Central and Western US, CosmoCom  Topic: "IP Contact Center Shootout”  When: Wednesday, October 26th, 12:30 - 2:15 p.m.
	Broadsoft Connections 2005 Executive Users Conference - Invitation Only October 2005 USA
	RECORDED WEBINARS
	View recordings of our recent Webinar events including "Hosted Contact Center for Outsourcers", "Contact Center On-Demand" and "Telecom Customer Care"

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