Genesys Named in Leaders Quadrant of Leading Analyst Firm's 2006 IVR and Enterprise Voice Portals Report

Wokingham - December 19, 2006 - Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel-Lucent company (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), announced today that market research firm Gartner, Inc. has placed Genesys in the leaders quadrant of its new report, "Magic Quadrant for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems and Enterprise Voice Portals, 2006" published December 5, 2006, and authored by Steve Cramoysan, Bern Elliot and Drew Kraus.

Gartner characterises leaders quadrant vendors as, "High-viability vendors with a strong voice response offering, significant market share, broad geographic coverage, a clear vision for how voice self-service needs will evolve and a proven track record for delivering interactive voice response offerings. They are well-positioned with their current product portfolio and are likely to continue to deliver leading products. They have a strong partner ecosystem providing voice response applications, tools and services for their platforms. They typically have a strong contact centre offering, with good integration between this and their voice response platform. Leaders do not always offer the best-of-breed solution for every customer requirement. However, overall, their products are strong, with some exceptional capabilities. Additionally, they provide solutions that offer relatively low risk."

"We believe Genesys has extended our market leadership in the IVR and enterprise voice portals market in the past year. Businesses that focus on customer service use Genesys Voice Platform (GVP) to create a great self-service environment as part of a fundamental strategy to stop customer frustration while simultaneously driving efficiency," said Brian Bischoff, vice president, worldwide voice platform sales, Genesys Telecommunications Labs. "In addition, GVP is key to delivering the right blend of integrated self- and assisted-service to meet the challenges of dynamic customer service environments."

According to Gartner, "Organisations are increasingly adopting voice response solutions based on Internet standards and a voice portal architecture. Leading vendors are improving integration between voice self-service and live agent functions, and are reducing the complexity of developing and operating solutions."

The report also makes two Strategic Planning Assumption(s):
  • By 2008, 80 per cent of new interactive voice response (IVR) shipments will be standards-based voice portal platforms.
  • By 2008, 80 per cent of new speech automated applications will be part of a Web-based self-service strategy.
As companies move away from proprietary platforms and instead shift toward open, standards-based voice portal platforms, Genesys has increased its market share based on the success of its open standards software solution, Genesys Voice Platform (GVP).

Earlier this year Gartner Dataquest published a report showing that Genesys led the voice portal shipments by port market on a worldwide basis, and, combined with its April acquisition of VoiceGenie, had 22.7 per cent market share, almost two and a half times the size of its nearest competitor. (Market Share: Voice Response Systems, Worldwide 2004, S. Cramoysan and D. Kraus, January 2006).

A copy of Gartner's "Magic Quadrant for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems and Enterprise Voice Portals, 2006," report is available on the Genesys Web site at the following link: http://www.genesyslab.com/about/news_events/reports/Gartner%20Magic%20Quadrant%20for%20IVR%20and%20Voice%20Portals%202006.pdf

About The Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted December, 2006 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission, which permission should not be deemed to be an endorsement of any company or product depicted in the quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is Gartner, Inc.’s opinion and is an analytical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It measures vendors against Gartner defined criteria for a marketplace. The positioning of vendors within a Magic Quadrant is based on the complex interplay of many factors. Gartner does not advise enterprises to select only those firms in the "Leaders" quadrant. In some situations, firms in the Visionary, Challenger, or Niche Player quadrants may be the right matches for an enterprise's requirements. Well-informed vendor selection decisions should rely on more than a Magic Quadrant. Gartner research is intended to be one of many information sources including other published information and direct analyst interaction. Gartner, Inc. expressly disclaims all warranties, express or implied, of fitness of this research for a particular purpose.

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys, an Alcatel company, is 100 per cent focused on software for contact centres. Leading companies in the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use Genesys to deliver interactions that drive better business. With 3,300 customers in 80 countries, Genesys directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Genesys allows enterprises to achieve key business objectives by tying together customer interactions, people, and customer information in both traditional telephony and IP environments. Sophisticated routing and reporting across voice, e-mail, documents and Web interactions, coupled with integrated self service, ensure that customers are quickly connected to the right resource - the first time. Genesys solutions stop customer frustration and allow enterprises to deliver superior customer satisfaction and improved business results. For more information, visit us at www.genesyslab.com.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users.  As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With 79,000 employees and operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organisations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved proforma combined revenues of Euro 18.6 billion in 2005, and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Media Contact:

Lucille Jackson, Genesys, 0118 974 7144, ljackson@genesyslab.co.uk




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