Concerto Software Acquires Rockwell FirstPoint Contact

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Oct 2004

Recently, I flew to Chicago to cover the merger of Concerto Software and Rockwell FirstPoint Contact (RFC), I was thrilled to be reporting on what may be the most important contact center acquisition of our time. While in Chicago, I addressed more than 1,000 employees of the combined companies and explained my take on the transaction and why it's important to the industry from my independent perspective. I've covered hundreds of M&As, and this one ranks up at the top. You see, the contact center was in the Dark Ages until the ACD was created in the 1980s. Half a decade later, the predictive dialer gave the market another shot in the arm. Rockwell was the founder and one of the larger players in the ACD market. Melita, a company Concerto purchased less than a year ago, is credited with inventing the predictive dialer. The combined company, which will be called Concerto Software, now boasts a patent portfolio of over 300 inbound, outbound and related patents with another 200 pending!

What is astounding about Concerto Software is just how big it has become. It's not a large general communications company like Avaya or Nortel, yet it is laser-focused on contact centers and at the same time it has the patents from the founders of inbound and outbound technologies in its portfolio.

If there is a downside to all this, it's that Concerto has now amassed a portfolio of products that is quite vast. Overlap is minimal; it just takes time to explain what everything does. This isn't a dialer company, an ACD company or a workforce management company; it is more like a contact center powerhouse with a bewildering assortment of products that will solve most contact center challenges. Other than integrating the two companies, Concerto's biggest challenge will be easily explaining to customers what its various products do and how they work together. Still, this is certainly easier for Concerto to do than the huge telecom companies against which it competes and which have even more products.

There were a few layoffs of overlapping personnel, and some minor products will be discontinued, but all in all, the combined entity will have deeper pockets, more R&D funds and can now innovate more quickly than each company could do on its own. It's worth pointing out that IP contact center technology and SIP remain important areas of focus for Concerto.

I am impressed with the management teams of both companies. They tell me that their corporate cultures are aligned and that the fit couldn't be better. The same is certainly true from a technology perspective. Concerto is not only a great company in its own right, but it has acquired a good deal of outside technology that it has been able to smoothly integrate. Concerto is also a strong marketing company. (This is an area in which RFC did not place emphasis.) Marketing is essential for long-term growth, so this is a win for Rockwell customers, in my opinion.

From a technology perspective, it doesn't get any more significant than this. In conjunction with Concerto's own technologies, the combined company now has the best-of-breed inbound and outbound solutions as part of the same entity. This is a crucial idea, as most contact centers still don't integrate their inbound and outbound systems. Leveraging all this leading-edge technology under a single roof, Concerto now has a grand vision for the integrated contact center of the future. I look forward to reporting on it as it unfolds.

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