PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 06, 2001-- Alcatel (Paris:CGEP.PA) (NYSE:ALA) today announced a major development in its pre-packaged Alcatel OmniTouch contact center suite targeting medium and large enterprises.

The integration of leading contact center functionality from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel, allows customers to benefit from the latest contact center solution to help them manage all of their calls more easily and more efficiently.

Powered by Genesys, Alcatel OmniTouch now features Genesys' outbound dialing technology in its new outbound module (automatic generation of outgoing calls) and plans to leverage Genesys' Internet contact center solution to bring Alcatel OmniTouch customers more advanced features for managing customer interactions over the Internet.

Alcatel OmniTouch offers comprehensive and packaged solutions with multi-media (voice, email, fax, Web, and chat) contact and a single management application. It is Alcatel's premier solution for medium and large enterprises that want to deploy a pre-integrated contact center/IP-based PBX solution for implementation in a short time period with a low total cost of ownership.

This application porting is a real opportunity for Alcatel to better meet customers needs. Alcatel OmniTouch, the leading pre-packaged contact center solution retains its full characteristics and ''easy t• dimension while incorporating advanced technologies from Genesys,'' said Patrick Liot, president of Alcatel's e-Business Networking Activities.

The combination of Genesys and Alcatel offers businesses a truly advanced, out-of-the-box solution for contact centers` Laurent Philonenko, CTO, Genesys. ''As businesses realize the need to quickly bring advanced contact center functionality to their customers, packaged offerings like OmniTouch enhanced by Genesys will help put them on the cutting edge of customer service.

OmniTouch:`Powered by Genesys

The new components incorporated into the Alcatel OmniTouch suite come from Genesys' new G6 solutions, the most recent release of Genesys' award-winning contact center suite from more complete customer relationship management. As a result, Alcatel OmniTouch will now feature the same technology used in Genesys' latest solutions -- all in a pre-packaged, pre-integrated offering that enables businesses to bring new customer care functionality more quickly to its customers. The pre-integrated CCoutbound leverages the Genesys G6 Outbound Contact solution and provides automatic generation of outgoing calls from a pre-configured list, simplifying and improving the performance of predictive group dialing. This greatly reduces the time that agents spend performing dialing functions for telemarketing campaigns, giving businesses greater efficiency for proactively supporting marketing activity and more effectively managing overall customer service.

CCweb, for integrating Web technology into a contact center, and CCemail, for integrating e-mail into a contact center, are two existing Alcatel OmniTouch modules that will be replaced by Genesys technology . This Newly added Genesys functionality will be available this year as direct replacements of the previous components and will follow the same pre-integrated paradigm as for the CCoutbound module.

Pricing and availability

The Alcatel OmniTouch enhanced by Genesys will be available from Alcatel distribution channel. Prices start at $600 per seat.

About Alcatel

Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data networking solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 130,000 employees and sales of EURO 31 billion in 2000, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com.

About Genesys

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an independent wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel, pioneered the field of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and today is the leading provider of infrastructure-independent contact center solutions for the enterprise, e-business and service provider markets. With its ability to integrate interactions across all media types, including the web and traditional voice, Genesys helps businesses provide a consistent customer interaction experience. Headquartered in San Francisco, Genesys has 43 direct sales offices worldwide. For more information please visit Genesys at www.genesyslab.com

Contact:

     Alcatel
groupe e-Business
Severine Vilbert,  + 33.(0) 1.55.66.71.19
severine.vilbert@alcatel.fr
or
Alcatel HQ
Aurelie Boutin, +33 (0) 1 40 76 11 79
aurelie.boutin@alcatel.fr
or
Relations Investisseurs
Claire Pedini, +33 (0)1 40 76 13 93
claire.pedini@alcatel.fr
or
Chris Welton, +33 (0)1 40 76 13 30
chris.welton@alcatel.fr
or
Emmanuel Spite, +33 (0)1 40 76 16 04
emmanuel.spite@alcatel.fr
or
Peter Campbell, + 1 972 519 4347

Peter.campbell@usa.alcatel.com