"We are very excited about the introduction of Altitude to the Asia Pacific market, especially in the Philippines," said Shlomo Harari, president, Altitude Software Asia Pacific.

He added, "Our strategy is to grow our partnerships regionally, and IP-Converge Data Center, Inc. is the key to this success. Our investments in Asia Pacific focus on off-shoring countries, namely the Philippines and India."

Harari recently met the local IT press to presents its credential and to announce his company’s strategic partnership with IP-Converge, the information technology and telecommunications division of Philippine-listed company IPVG Corporation (IPC).

"It is a strong added value for us to work with a strong service provider. IP Converge is the only service provider working with us as a partner. Other partners are resellers, such as Avaya resellers," he said.

In a press release, IPC President Rene Huergas remarked that the partnership with Altitude is an important aspect in IPC’s go-to-market strategy, and augurs well with its full-scale of best-of-breed products and services to meet the unique needs of its customers.

Through its partnership with global contact center solution provider Altitude, IP-Converge Data Center reinforces its Voice Over Internet Protocol Services, V.O.I.C.E.S or Voice Over Internet Call Exchange Suite. V.O.I.C.E.S. offers three primary services: Wholesale VOIP termination services, hosted IPPBX service, and contact center solutions.

Huergas said, "The benefits we offer are in our capability to provide our customers with end-to-end solutions, including dedicated Internet access and voice termination, allowing our customers to take full advantage of our highly robust network infrastructure and range of ‘boutique’ managed data services to meet specific customer needs. Our customers’ options have become practically limitless."

For his part, Gary Gonzales, country manager, Altitude Software Philippines, stated "Altitude enters the Philippine market at the right time when the emergence of IP infrastructure is truly becoming not only an enabler of systems but rather, a business process tool that contributes significantly to the bottom-line of every contact center and BPO."

The Philippine sales office of Altitude Software opened in shop in September 2006. Through its alliance with IP-Converge, its local staff of engineers is expected to increasing correspondingly.

Altitude Software is a privately-owned, independent company with venture capital and institutional investors such as FIEP (a special Portuguese government fund to support the internationalization of companies), Fogeca the venture capital arm of Grupo Salvador Caetano, PME Capital (Portuguese venture capital fund), and Grupo Totta (Portuguese branch of Banco Santander Central Hispano).

Harari commented, "We will see more and more contact centers moving into the all-IP solution, giving us an excellent opportunity to address the market together with IP-Converge."

Early this year, IPC tapped Salesforce.com, a market and technology leader in on-demand business services, to pin down high-growth markets that are in need of on-demand customer relations management applications.

Said Huergas, "We have completed our first phase of our business growth plans with our partners — each comprising full-suite of our boutique products and service offerings."

Available as a premise-based solution, Altitude UCI or Unified Customer Interaction is offered by IPC as a hosted solution located in its telco-grade, telco-neutral Internet Data Center at RCBC Plaza in Makati City.

The hosted or application service provider model is ideal for start-up contact centers or in customer service departments of small and medium-sized enterprises and multinational corporations. The system can be implement at minimum equipment investment, if any, and at the least operating cost. The premise-based version is a modular solution that provides the advantage of seamless interface with an existing or legacy application installed in a client environment.