"Skype is easy to use and a very affordable calling solution," said Pat Kelly, COO at OnState. "Our OnState ACD for Skype extends Skype's inherent value proposition to the call center and customer contact management industries." With OnState, businesses can select the call center services they need for just one or up to hundreds of users at a single, per-agent, per-month fee. There are no upfront or fixed costs and no commitments. "We're offering pay-as-you-go, pay-for-what-you-need call center management, which effectively redefines how call centers are administered, how services are priced, and how profit margins are calculated," continued Kelly.

The anticipated return on investment for OnState ACD for Skype has cross-industry appeal with "OnState ACD getting immediate market traction in help desk environments, travel-related services, manufacturing, and the emerging online communities of domain experts in the automotive, technology and medical fields," said Kelly.

Depending on the number of agents, the cost of maintaining a call center has traditionally been in the hundreds of dollars per month, per agent -- even when businesses rely on near-shore and off-shore resources. "Because OnState ACD for Skype does not use traditional hosted or VoIP call center options and requires minimal agent training and management, we can lower monthly per-agent costs to a fraction of what businesses typically invest," noted Kelly.

"It's no exaggeration to say that these new price points and ease-of-use features herald a new-generation call center business model that may even help businesses become less reliant on off-shore resources so that they can maintain local call center agents and ultimately drive increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention." These benefits also improve the effectiveness and investments in existing call center agents and all customer-facing functions.

"OnState is part of a growing ecosystem of third-party companies that are developing truly innovative Extras for Skype to meet specific business-user needs in both small and large enterprises. Extras for Skype are third-party applications that are accessible from the Skype 3.0 software, which gives our users new ways to do more with Skype," said Paul Amery, director of Skype Developer Programs. "We're thrilled to see applications such as OnState ACD that capitalize on the advantages of Skype 3.0, while opening the door for Skype in the call center space."

Availability and Pricing

OnState ACD for Skype 3.0 is available through Skype as a plug-in, or directly from OnState Communications with trial versions available at: http://www.on-state.com/contact.html. General Availability is scheduled by the end of March 2007.

Monthly pricing for OnState ACD for Skype 3.0 starts at $29.95/per agent.