Vertical Thought Acquires SOAdesk Contact Center Services Consultancy: Combination Creates Premier Desktop Integration And Automation Services Provider

Vertical Thought, Inc. has aquired SOAdesk. The combined company will leverage leading SOA-enabling technologies such as the OpenSpan Platform to help contact centers improve customer satisfaction and agent productivity, ensure compliance, reduce operating costs and simplify new agent training. This combination creates the premier Desktop Integration and Automation Services Provider. End Quote

Atlanta, GA (1888PressRelease) June 24, 2008 - Alpharetta, GA and Lenexa, KS – Vertical Thought, Inc., a leading provider of custom software solutions for Global 2000 organizations, announced the acquisition of SOAdesk, a customer interaction consulting and services provider. By acquiring SOAdesk, Vertical Thought expands its presence in the client-side integration and automation market in order to further assist enterprises to deliver productivity and customer satisfaction improvements. The combined company will leverage leading SOA-enabling technologies such as the OpenSpan Platform to help contact centers improve customer satisfaction and agent productivity, ensure compliance, reduce operating costs and simplify new agent training.

SOAdesk will officially become part of Vertical Thought Services, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and business unit within Vertical Thought Inc. The combined entity will now operate under the SOAdesk brand. Tony Castagno, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Vertical Thought will continue as Chairman and CEO of the combined company. Mike Garner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SOAdesk, will become President of the combined company and serve on the Board of Directors.

“Merging the two companies will form the largest and most experienced client-side integration and automation practice in the market,” said Tony Castagno, CEO of Vertical Thought, “SOAdesk brings extensive industry experience including direct experience managing large contact center environments. This acquisition also expands Vertical Thought’s staff of OpenSpan Certified Consultants; positioning us extremely well in the growing market for contact center agent desktop productivity solutions.”

“By joining the Vertical Thought family, we are better able to focus our energies helping our customers reduce complexity within their IT and contact center organizations,” said Mike Garner, President of SOAdesk, “SOAdesk builds solutions that help contact center agents serve customers with the fewest number of screens, steps and clicks as possible by integrating desktop, web, host and legacy applications and web services; and automating time-consuming business processes. Together with Vertical Thought, we will help organizations maximize the value of existing IT assets rather than spend millions of dollars on new systems that only add another layer of complexity for contact center agents and the IT organizations that support them.”

Contact centers within Global 2000 enterprises will continue to benefit from the combined company’s ability to deliver integrated and intelligent desktop environments, which enable the following benefits:

• Major reductions in operating expenses driven by elimination of cumbersome business processes, reduced average handling times and improved first call resolution rates
• Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty driven by increased Agent focus on the customer
• 100% compliance on all programmable routines and procedures
• Shorter and more impactful supplemental and new-hire training classes
• Greater agent attraction and retention due to reduced complexity
• Customer and agent behavior intelligence for use in process redesign and coaching plan focus
• Increased revenue per interaction via professional recommendation support tool creation or redesign

“OpenSpan has enjoyed a long relationship with both Vertical Thought and SOAdesk and we are thrilled that they have joined forces,” said Francis Carden, CEO of OpenSpan. “The combined company offers enterprises a unique blend of real world contact center management experience, best practice consulting offerings, and an extensive team of OpenSpan Certified Consultants who collaborate with OpenSpan in deploying productivity-enhancing solutions for our joint customers.”

About Vertical Thought
Vertical Thought is a software solutions consulting firm specializing in Microsoft .NET technologies. Located in Alpharetta, GA, Vertical Thought was founded in 2001 by professionals who have extensive experience in full lifecycle software development utilizing the Microsoft .NET platform. The Vertical Thought team has a proven track record of successfully planning, architecting, developing, testing and launching technology projects. This experience was not gained by reading white papers and journal articles; it was learned in the field by developing and deploying enterprise applications for some of the largest companies in the world.

Vertical Thought is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and is committed to emerging technologies and providing excellence in customer solutions. Our consultants meet regularly with Microsoft’s internal product groups to ensure our solutions are prepared for and take advantage of the newest technology in development at Microsoft.

About SOAdesk
SOAdesk is a global customer interaction consulting and technology services company. SOAdesk works with its clients to help them drive significant productivity and customer satisfaction improvements. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, SOAdesk can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 40 engagements completed using the OpenSpan platform to deliver high performance agent desktops, SOAdesk is unsurpassed in its ability to deliver simplified and more powerful agent desktops in a matter of weeks. Its home page is http://www.soadesk.com.

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