…Confirmit Horizons Version 15: A More Intuitive and Productive Platform…

New York, NY and Oslo, Norway – March 9, 2010: Confirmit has announced the launch of Confirmit Horizons Version 15, the new release of its on-demand, multi-channel platform for customer feedback, employee feedback, and Market Research applications.

Confirmit Horizons Version 15 builds on the success of the Horizons platform that was launched in 2009. It introduces a range of enhanced functionality, including:

• Confirmit Flex, a toolkit that allows third parties to develop extensions to Confirmit, turning it into a platform for application development.

• A powerful new PowerPoint Add-In that integrates directly with Confirmit Reportal—allowing users to create presentation-ready PowerPoint exports quickly and easily.

• Improvements to the authoring process to make survey design faster, easier, and more productive.

This latest release also brings extensive usability and productivity improvements that streamline many day-to-day survey processes and offer more intuitive ways of working.

Pat Molloy, Chief Strategy Officer at Confirmit, says: “Confirmit Flex builds on the robust, stable Confirmit Horizons platform by allowing us and our customers to develop applications far more quickly than would be possible in a standard software release cycle.

“Flex gives our Market Research customers the ability to further differentiate their services to clients by building their own applications. For our Enterprise clients, Flex will offer the opportunity to incorporate third-party applications to suit individual needs, as they become available.”

In addition to the benefits of Flex, Confirmit Horizons Version 15 increases the productivity of survey and feedback programs by automating repetitive tasks, creating smoother design processes, and increasing flexibility in the way users collect, analyze, and share survey data.

Molloy continues: “After a year of Horizons in production, we have listened carefully to the feedback from our customers. In addition to opening up our platform, we have made over one thousand enhancements that make Confirmit more productive, and even easier and more intuitive to use.”

Confirmit Horizons is the world’s first fully on-demand, multi-channel platform of its kind. Since its launch, it has helped Enterprises and Market Research businesses to conduct multi-channel feedback programs both on and offline, using the Web, telephone, paper, IVR, and face-to-face methods.

Molloy concludes: “We are confident that Version 15 of the Horizons platform will bring measurable benefits to all of our customers in terms of productivity increases, cost and time savings, and increased ease in delivery of reporting and analytics to those in the business who need to see it quickly.

“Of course, all of these benefits come with the added assurance of the highest levels of security, reliability, and availability that are synonymous with the Confirmit On-Demand infrastructure.”

Ends

About Confirmit

Confirmit is the world’s leading SaaS vendor for Customer Feedback, Employee Feedback, and Market Research applications. The company has more than 200 employees and offices in Oslo (headquarters), Guildford, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit’s software is also distributed through partner resellers in Barcelona, Kuwait City, Madrid, Milan, Pattaya, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Confirmit targets Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include British Airways, Dow Chemical, Farmers Insurance, GlaxoSmithKline, Halifax Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Intrawest, Ipsos, Nielsen, The NPD Group, Safeco Insurance, Statoil, Symantec, Virgin Media, and Wells Fargo. Visit www.confirmit.com for more information.

Press Contacts
Gary Schwartz, SVP Marketing: +1 212 660 1816
Pat Molloy, Chief Strategy Officer: + 44 (0)1483 300100
EMEA PR Contacts, Indigo River: Andrea Burton +44 (0)1985 850320 / Melanie Oxford +44 (0)7515 632065
US PR Contacts, Hart Boillot: Perrin McCormick / Andrea Doeringer +1 781 893 0053
– Carolyn Hall 09-03-2010

Contact Centre Business Transformation has emerged as a viable option to generate large and immediate cost savings from day one, according to a Datamonitor white paper published today; Contact Centre Business Transformation: Delivering Cost Savings and Improved Service Quality.

Contact Centre Business Transformation is where an enterprise enters into a partnership with an outsourcer, with the express purpose of improving its CRM-related business performance. This is achieved by re-engineering its processes through the transfer of the contact centre facility (infrastructure and human capital) from the enterprise to the outsourcer and is designed specifically to reduce costs and remove commercial risk, while improving the quality of service provided to end-users.

Peter Ryan, Lead Analyst Call Centres and BPO at Datamonitor comments: “In light of escalating costs and service demands we are seeing a focus on new and innovative contact centre operating models. Business Transformation has emerged as a viable option to generate large and immediate cost savings.”

Teleperformance, who commissioned the report following its own experience in the growth of this area, has first hand experience of business transformation and the business benefits it brings, with its most recent example for the multinational technology corporation, Dell.

Jeff Smith, Chairman and CEO of Teleperformance UK comments: “We are aware of the business challenges faced by companies running in-house contact centres and the key strategic issues they face such as reduced budgets, attrition and the capital expenditure necessary to keep up with technology. Business Transformation is a viable option. It is not only proven to deliver cost savings to our clients, but more importantly, to improve service quality to our clients’ customers.”

The white paper contains examples of the impact business transformation can have on a business over a 2 year period and is available by calling Teleperformance on +44 (0)117 916 8000 or by e-mailing julia.gibbs@teleperformance.co.uk

Notes to editors;

• Teleperformance is part of the world’s largest contact centre outsourcer, Teleperformance Group. For more information on Teleperformance UK please visit www.teleperformance.co.uk or contact Tina Stanley, Tina Stanley & Associates PR Tel/fax +44 (0)1491 410250 or E-mail tina@tinastanleyassoc.com
• Photo featured is of Jeff Smith, CEO & Chairman of Teleperformance UK
– Tina Stanley 08-03-2010

Doncaster, UK, – March 2010: Meetupcall (http://www.meetupcall.com), the new South Yorkshire-based challenger on the low-cost provider teleconferencing block, today announced the launch of their new website. Packed with easy to use dynamic content and immediate access to an enhanced range of the most cost-effective audio conferencing services on the market, the new site showcases the company’s ever-expanding offerings to the UK and beyond.

User-friendly and concise, the new site is easily navigated and intuitive, bringing the markets’ leading lowest cost, world-class teleconferencing services another step closer to business-savvy organisations, both large and small.

Mindful that businesses everywhere are constantly challenged to find new ways to maximise their resources whilst lower their costs, Meetupcall’s new web site features an enhanced set of service offerings. Customers can now choose from three new package types including: Pay As You Go, Select and Bundles.

MeetupcallPAYG gives users instant access conference call service. Designed for business looking to spread the costs of teleconferencing amongst all participants, calls are billed directly to each caller’s regular phone or mobile bill. MeetupcallPAYG is feature rich, providing uncompromising teleconferencing clarity, reliability and cost effectiveness with every call.

For users who want centralised billing teleconference service, MeetupcallBUNDLES gives businesses a choice of tariff and features options to best suit their needs. Whether for frequent or ad hoc use, an individual or a team within an organisation, Bundles provide reliable and scalable solutions suited to needs now and as an organisation grows.

MeetupcallSELECT is flexible conferencing service for users who want to tailor their teleconferencing package to their specific needs or replace a current service offering like for like. Designed specifically to be flexible enough to meet any organisation’s conferencing needs, this service offers our world class functionality and user experience while still maintaining the quality and reliability of the services offered by the major telecoms companies.

Simon Moxon, CEO of Meetupcall said: ‘our new website breaks through the jargon and hype with new and easy to understand offerings, a clean, modern and professional look and feel and service functionality to world-class standards. We are confident our efforts to both enhance the web experience and our customer’s needs for flexible, cost effective and world-class technology will be well-received by new audiences across the public and private sectors.’

Having opened its virtual doors in July 2009 to an audio conferencing market crowded with high priced, complex ‘me too’ solutions, Meetupcall’s mantra , ‘teleconferencing… that’s all’ with the most user-friendly and intuitive service on the market, has resonated well with the business community across the UK, growing 3-fold month on month since its inception.

Meetupcall is currently offering a free conference call trial for 30 days on all their bundles.

Simon Moxon
MeetupCall.com
0203 291 2313 – John Scott Cothill 07-03-2010

Dr Mike Short, vice president of research and development at Telefonica Europe, gave an enthusiastic audience from Bury’s digital and creative community an insight into tomorrow’s connected world. Charting the stellar growth of mobile phones, mobile broadband, fixed broadband and internet services, Dr Short predicted developments in mobile hardware, networks, broadband capacity and services that will revolutionise every aspect of home and business life.

“We have seen the future,” declared Digital Bury coordinator Tony Tickle. Dr Short explained how mobile technology is driving innovative new services. Roads, cars, homes and education are all now connected and people are using new technologies to enhance their lifestyles. He spoke of how machine-to-machine connections over the internet are creating a new generation of multi-function mobile devices with services for rich-content communication at high speed.

Taking health and wellbeing as an example, Dr Short explained that O2 is part of Continua Alliance, an association of 250 global companies engaged in digital health care. He outlined how mobile communications will support people in living active and independent lives.

In sport, mobile communications allows heart rate, respiration and other key indicators in elite athletes to be monitored continuously by trainers and health professionals. This is the sort of technology that will be diffused to the wider population. This will help both healthy active individuals and others who may have critical conditions to manage their own lives and health care more effectively.

We face a demographic time bomb, Dr Short explained, and as the population ages there may be insufficient carers to cope with the workload. Here again, mobile technologies can provide the essential systems for social and medical support, care and security, making people less isolated and vulnerable.

Looking forward, Dr Short predicted that what we now know as mobile communication will become far richer and more customised to each users needs and lifestyle. It will provide information, entertainment, communication and a range of new applications, the scope of which is limited only by the ingenuity and imagination of their developers.

Analysts predict that by 2020 the machine-to-machine mobile market will be worth 20 to 50 billion pounds. O2 is a major force throughout Europe and so Bury is a major part of this international digital community, a fact that has been recognised with the creation of the industry hub that is Digital Bury.

More Information

Tony Tickle, Digital and New Media Development, Digital Bury, Town Hall, Bury, BL9 0SW
Tel. 0161 253 6009 E-mail: t.tickle@bury.gov.uk Webs: www.digitalbury.com www.bury.gov.uk
High res image can be downloaded from www.clickintopr.com/editors/articleDetail.asp?pjID=582

Additional Note

The next Digital Bury event will be on March 25. Christian Payne AKA Documentally, the freelance social media maker and photographer, will provide an insight into the how to exploit social media by amplification.

Mike Short – Brief Profile

Mike Short’s career spans 34 years in electronics and telecommunication with the last 21 years in the mobile communications field. After looking after Cellnet’s 3G strategy he was appointed VP for technology for the O2 Group in 2000. He is the current chair of the UK government Trade and Investment Information and Communications Technology Sector Advisory Board. He is a fellow and vice president of the Institute of Engineering Technology and also a fellow of the Chartered Institute for Information Technology, the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and the Royal Geographical Society. – Adrian Maguire 05-03-2010