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Interactive Intelligence, a provider of unified business communications solutions, today released the Interaction SIP Station, a new communications endpoint device designed as an alternative to traditional IP desk phones. The SIP Station has no handset, display, or dial pad. Instead, the device, which measures just 4.5 inches by 4.5 inches by 1.5 inches, works in conjunction with any headset and Interactive Intelligence’s own Interaction Client, a PC-based call control application. Interaction Client software includes call recording, call rules, conferencing, presence management, company directory look-up, queue monitoring, call history, and more. The device itself features just a few buttons: a programmable speed dial, pick-up/disconnect, mute, and volume control. A single LED light indicates whether the device is idle, on a call, or muted. With the launch of this device Interactive Intelligence hopes to reverse the industry trend “to push more functionality into the endpoint device,” which then makes the device more expensive, says Christine Holley, director of market communications at Interactive Intelligence. “Devices are definitely getting more expensive and vendors push more functionality into them.” The simplistic device “is just the audio path to the PC. All the functionality is on the PC,” Holley explains. “By providing a dedicated audio path for reliability, and using our client application for rich functionality, the Interaction SIP Station provides all the features a company needs in an endpoint device, and none that they don’t,” says Joe Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Interactive Intelligence. “What makes this device a market first, however, is that we’re offering this reliability and simplicity at a price that’s roughly half that of a basic IP phone, and a fraction of what high-end multimedia phones cost.” The SIP Station is targeted toward mid-size to large contact centers and will be sold as an optional device with Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center (CIC) all-in-one IP communications software suite. The product will retail for $49 and will be available by the end of this month throughout North America and Europe through the company’s resellers and direct sales force.
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