Thursday, May 17, 2012
   
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Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - 21:25

This is a public service blog post for everyone who is looking for the definition of Microsoft's UCMA acronym.  The answer is Unified Communications Managed API.  Since the acronym contains another acronym, I'll also say that the definition of API is Application Programming Interface.

I've written before about what UCMA really is and what it can be used for, but this blog post is to simply remind people what the acronym actually stands for, because earlier today I had a moment where I wasn't sure.  I've used the acronym so much, that it was starting to lose meaning and it became just another technical word.  When I typed it into Bing, I was surprised at how hard it was to find someone actually spelling out the words that UCMA stands for.

So here you go search engines:  UCMA stands for Unified Communications Managed API.  UCMA means Unified Communications Managed API.  The meaning of UCMA is Unified Communications Managed API.  The acronym UCMA is Unified Communications Managed API.

There, now it's burned back into my own memory.  That got me to thinking about what other acronyms in our field have become so commonplace that their meaning is in danger of being lost.  How many of these do you know without looking?

TCP/IP

ACD

ISDN

PBX

SIP

DOS

PRI

SDK

FTP

UNIX

That last one was meant to be a trick question, because I didn't think it had a meaning, but it is at least based on an acronym.  Look for the heading "1970s" to read about it.

 

Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - 00:02

Contact/Call for demo: Sales

Email: websales@goldsys.com

Telephone: 303-447-2774

Twitter: @GoldSystemsInc

Website: http://www.goldsys.com/

Gold Systems Speaks Out at SpeechTEK on its

"Self-Service" Solution for UC-Unified Communications

Called Vonetix 7 Voice (V7V)

BOULDER – Gold Systems, a leader in enhancing "personable" customer communications using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions built on Microsoft Lync™ platform will be exhibiting at SpeechTek and giving demonstrations of Vonetix 7 August 13-15th  in Booth 707 at http://www.speechtek.com

V7V adds a wide array of interactive voice enhancements to Microsoft Lync to provide true Unified Communications (UC) capabilities.  “People really don't find IVR very personable or user-friendly.  IVR has come a long way and there are many great opportunities ahead as the technology expands and lowers the cost of delivery.  It opens new opportunities for businesses of all sizes,” noted Terry Gold, Gold Systems CEO.

Some of the key benefits to V7V are:

- Lower TCO-total cost of ownership with speech recognition and text-to-speech licenses included - V7V is an innovative, cost-effective design, development and deployment environment.  Gold uses Microsoft speech engines, which means no extra costs or high maintenance fees for third party speech or text-to-speech engines.

- Works with Microsoft Lync – V7V applications can run on their own server using just the Microsoft speech engine, or they can work with Microsoft Lync to add Unified Communications features to IVR applications, getting even more value out of Lync and providing better customer service.

- Highly Scalable & High Performance — V7V provides the tools and implementation methodologies that allow us to achieve significant performance benefits now and in the future.

These are just a few of the many benefits of V7V; contact Gold Systems for a demonstration today or see a demonstration at SpeechTek. 

 

Background: Gold - Microsoft Partner Gold Unified Communications

 

Gold has certified Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP's) who have passed new UC competency evaluations.  In addition, our sales experts have passed the sales and marketing assessment to achieve this goal as well as the required number of customer recommendations.  In addition, Gold has sales experts have passed the sales and marketing assessment to achieve this goal as well as the required number of customer recommendations. 

"We have a strong professional services group that is skilled in both the migration from traditional PBX systems as well as the implementation of new Lync greenfield installations," noted Terry Gold.  Gold systems have also partnered with other unified communications industry leaders to provide - start-to-finish, side-by-side and over-the-shoulder professional services.   Gold has indepth knowledge of media gateways, session border controllers, end points, SIP trunking and other options to maximize the range of customer settings from SMB to large-enterprise.  For more information on Gold Professional Services, please email websales@goldsys.com.

About Gold Systems

Gold Systems is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Unified Communications and speech recognition technology.  For two decades, Gold Systems' award-winning contact center and IVR software applications have handled billions of phone calls and customer interactions for the world’s largest enterprises.

Developed by Gold Systems, Vonetix™ 7 (a trademark of Gold Systems) is software that UC enables contact center and IVR systems.  V7V is complete design, development and deployment environments that support premises deployments and platform portability without rewriting the application.

Earlier versions of Vonetix are in service around the world in thousands of contact centers.  Vonetix 7 is a completely new product written to compliment Microsoft UC and speech platforms.

Gold Systems offerings include customized contact center solutions, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) self-service systems, and Communication-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) applications that improve customer satisfaction, raise productivity, empower mobile users and reduce the cost of customer communications.  Gold Systems is based in Boulder, Colorado.   For more information visit:  http://www.goldsys.com.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

 

 

 

NOT INCLUDED for PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION - TAGS: Gold Systems, Vonetix 7, self-server customer service, mitigation rates, speechtek, uc videos, videos on uc, unified communications videos, Vonetix voice, Microsoft Gold, lync professional services, lync training, lync solutions, microsoft Gold certification, microsoft gold competency, Microsoft UC partners, UC partners, ivr, CEBP, UMCA, Microsoft UCMA, ivr contact center, contact center ivr, speech server, lync ivr, microsoft ivr, Vonetix,   voicexml ivr, ivr hosting, ivr platform, ivr server, ivr applications, ivr developer, voicexml hosting, voicexml platform, interactive voice response, lync customization, speech recognition, skype, voice recognition, ACD, skills based routing, presence, unified communication, unified messaging, UC, UM, microsoft lync,  contact center applications, end of life speech server, speech server end of life

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 23:01
A few weeks ago I visited some Gold Systems customers.  One of the best parts of my job is seeing how other businesses work, and I get to meet a lot of different people.  Usually I'm doing some sort of presentation or demo, but during one of my customer visits they gave me a presentation about how their business uses automation and how critical it is to their business.
 
I can't name the company, because like many of our customers, they are very protective about their name and how exactly they use technology.  Most of our customers are Fortune 1,000 size customers, so I'm used to that.  I like to think that they see Gold Systems as their secret weapon. 
 
I loved this presentation because they expressed something that I've been saying to our customers, and that is that you can't sacrifice the customer experience.  They really want to improve their customers experience with the IVR, and they have some metrics to make sure they get there.  A couple of quotes from their presentation jumped out at me, and I have permission to reproduce them here.
 
"Our goal is to improve BOTH self-service and customer experience."  Jim Collins in Built to Last talked about how the great companies "do not oppress themselves with what we call the Tyranny of the OR."  Great companies don't think that "You can have change OR stability" or "You can have low cost OR high quality."  They think about how they can have BOTH things.  This customer is certain that they can allow customers to do more self service AND they can increase customer satisfaction.  I believe they can too, because I've seen it done.
 
To make it even more clear, the customer went on to say, "We are not interested in investments that improve mitigation rates but result in frustrated customers (and we are not interested in) new technology with unclear or niche benefits."  If you aren't familiar with the term, "mitigation rates" it refers to the measurement of how many people do not need to talk to a live operator and so stay in the automated system.  Thankfully, this customer does not believe that making it harder to talk to a person is a good idea.  We want to make it easier for people to get the information they need, so they don't have to talk to a person, but if they want to or need to talk a person, we make that easy too.  It seems like common sense, but I was so happy to see this customer embrace the idea.  If more companies worked this way, there would be a lot more satisfied customers in the world and the term "voicemail jail" would disappear.
 
I suggest everyone adopt the idea of improving BOTH self-service AND customer experience.
 
Terry Gold
CEO
Gold Systems

 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 15:41

Business is great, and Gold Systems is growing!  We're looking for a lot of different people to join the team, so check out http://www.goldsys.com/careers As of right now we're looking for a Project Manager, Software Engineers and UC Specialists to work with our Microsoft Lync Deployment team.

We're also looking for Regional Sales Managers who have experience in our industry, or who have a proven track record of selling software. 

Some jobs are in Boulder, Colorado, while others may be possible elsewhere in the U.S.  Gold Systems has many people who work outside of Boulder, and we have the technology to make it work well.

Check it out at http://www.goldsys.com/careers

(Note to recruiters.  We have several great relationships with recruiters already, so only contact us if you have a specific person who would be a great fit for one of our jobs.  Thanks!)

 

 

Monday, March 12, 2012 - 21:37

Terry Gold, CEO and Co-founder of Gold Systems, sat for an interview last week that covered a lot of questions about Gold Systems and our newest product, Vonetix 7 Voice.  The video was split into two or three minute segments for easy viewing and you can find the complete series at http://www.youtube.com/goldsys

The series includes:

- The Future of Communications - length 2:38

- The GoldStar Process - Gold Business Processes - length 3:29

- Vonetix 7 Voice Customers - Customer Applications - length 2:22

- Vonetix 7 Voice Overview - Introduction and Overview of Vonetix 7 Voice - length 6:18

- Vonetix 7 Voice Solutions - Key Customer Solutions - length 2:04

- What is CEBP? - What is Communications Enabled Business Processes - length 2:04

- What is UCMA? - What is Unified Communications Managed API - length 2:00

- What is Vonetix 7 Voice? - length 2:11

- Who is Gold Systems? - Company Background and Strategy - time 2:42

- Why Vonetix 7 Voice? – Why Vonetix 7 Voice is different from legacy IVR and will improve customer service - length 2:36

Saturday, February 25, 2012 - 03:50

 

Gold Systems Demonstrates Innovative Microsoft Lync & Vonetix 7 Voice Integration at EnterpriseConnect - Orlando

BOULDER – Gold Systems, a leader in self-service customer communications using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions announced it will demonstrate integration of Microsoft® Lync™ and Vonetix 7 Voice™ (V7V) at EnterpriseConnect (http://enterpriseconnect.com) March 26-28 in Orlando in booth #325. Vonetix 7 is latest release in a series of ongoing software developments in voice call processing.  "We are working with clients to build Lync enabled voice processing IVR solutions in significantly less time and subsequently considerably lower cost than ever before," noted Terry Gold CEO. "With the demands to address new business requirements, V7V can be the one voice IVR platform for all your customer call processing needs." Gold added.  Referred to by Lync experts as the "Lync-IVR," Vonetix 7 Voice addresses three primary customer objectives:

            - Lync and IVR integration

            - Contact Center Solutions with Lync

            - Customer-centric IVR results

Gold will demonstrate Vonetix 7 Voice practical solutions in its booth #325.  For immediate information and details visit the website http://goldsys.com

Gold - Microsoft Partner Gold Unified Communications

Gold has certified Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP's) who have passed new UC competency evaluations.  In addition, our sales experts have passed the sales and marketing assessment to achieve this goal as well as the required number of customer recommendations.  In addition, Gold has sales experts have passed the sales and marketing assessment to achieve this goal as well as the required number of customer recommendations. 

"We have a strong professional services group that is skilled in both the migration from traditional PBX systems as well as the implementation of new Lync greenfield installations," noted Terry Gold.  Gold systems have also partnered with other unified communications industry leaders to provide - start-to-finish, side-by-side and over-the-shoulder professional services.   Gold has indepth knowledge of media gateways, session border controllers, end points, SIP trunking and other options to maximize the range of customer settings from SMB to large-enterprise.  For more information on Gold Professional Services, please email websales@goldsys.com.

About Gold Systems

Gold Systems is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Unified Communications and speech recognition technology.  For two decades, Gold Systems' award-winning contact center and IVR software applications have handled billions of phone calls and customer interactions for the world’s largest enterprises.

Developed by Gold Systems, Vonetix™ 7 (a trademark of Gold Systems) is software that UC enables contact center and IVR systems.  V7V is complete design, development and deployment environments that support both cloud and premises deployments and platform portability without rewriting the application.

Earlier versions of Vonetix are in service around the world in thousands of contact centers.  Vonetix 7 is a completely new product written to compliment Microsoft UC and speech platforms.

Gold Systems offerings include customized contact center solutions, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) self-service systems, and Communication-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) applications that improve customer satisfaction, raise productivity, empower mobile users and reduce the cost of customer communications.  Gold Systems is based in Boulder, Colorado.   For more information visit:  http://www.goldsys.com.

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

NOT INCLUDED for PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION - TAGS: Vonetix 7, Vonetix voice, Microsoft Gold, lync professional services, lync training, lync solutions, Gold certification, microsoft gold competency, Microsoft UC partners, UC partners, ivr, UMCA, Microsoft UCMA, ivr contact center, contact center ivr, lync ivr, microsoft ivr, tellme, tellme ivr, ivr tellme, Vonetix,  tellme solutions, voicexml ivr, ivr hosting, ivr platform, ivr server, ivr applications, ivr developer, voicexml hosting, voicexml platform, interactive voice response, lync customization, speech recognition, skype, voice recognition, ACD, skills based routing, presence, unified communication, unified messaging, UC, UM, microsoft lync, microsoft tellme, contact center applications

http://crosstalk-techtionary.blogspot.com/2012/02/gold-systems-demonstrates-innovative.html

http://www.proskore.com/pressrelease.cfm?PRID=79072

 

 

 

Monday, February 6, 2012 - 21:52

Visit Gold Systems at Enterprise Connect to see Vonetix 7 Voice, our Unified Communications enabled IVR

Gold Systems will be at Enterprise Connect in Orlando, March 26th the 28th.  Join us there to learn more about Vonetix 7 Voice, our Unified Communications enabled IVR and how we use it to create new UC appliations for our customers. 

Monday, February 6, 2012 - 19:13

Interview with w3w3 about Vonetix 7 Voice, Gold Systems IVR and UC software product

Gold Systems' CEO, Terry Gold was interviewed this week on W3W3.com, "Colorado's Voice of the Technology Community."  W3W3.com is a great resource for what is going on not just in Colorado, but in the technology world.  To listen to the podcast of the interview, click here:  http://www.w3w3pc.com/Software/Terry.Gold_GoldSystems_2-6-2012.mp3

To read the blog post introducing the podcast, click here.

We need to make a minor correct to the blog post.  The original version of Vonetix (aka, Vonetix 1, 2 and 3) was licensed to Avaya and Cisco.  Avaya shipped Vonetix on all Conversants and Avaya IR systems throughout the world, and to this day there are many large enterprises using that product.  That product was written in Java and was add-on software to Avaya and Cisco's IVR platforms.

Vonetix 7 Voice was written from scratch using Microsoft C# and .NET technologies, and it was designed to work with Microsoft's Speech Server and now their Lync product.  V7V as we call it, is a complete IVR platform, with speech recognition capabilities.  It's not just an IVR though, because it was designed to work with Lync and can draw on presence capabilities and it is multi-modal, meaning in addition to voice it can work with IM, mobile applications or web applications.  Check out this video to see an example of that capability.

 

Monday, January 23, 2012 - 04:33

One of the unique things about working at Gold Systems is that everyone gets their own office.  I've long been a believer that everyone should be able to close their door and think.  Colaboration and teamwork is great, but sometimes people just need to focus, think and concentrate.

Years ago we started the tradition of letting people really make their office their own.  Some people want their office to be bright with lots of light, and many of the offices have windows, while some people prefer their office to be more cozy.  Some people are fine with white walls and standard office furnature, while others like to paint their offices and bring in furnature from home to match their idea of a great place to work.  We have several offices with murals, one or two purple offices and several that look like a home office.

Recently Angela decided to remodel her office, so she came in on the weekend, repainted the walls and redecorated.  It looks great, and it makes her happy. At a time when most people don't have walls, let alone doors and a place to call their own, we think it's good to be different.

The Gold Team

The Gold Guarantee

The Gold Guarantee states that each customer will be completely satisfied with the product or service that Gold Systems produces or we will work at our own expense to ensure that satisfaction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Systems, Inc. is located in Boulder, Colorado.