EVOKE COMMUNICATIONS ACQUIRES CONTIGO SOFTWARE
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Acquisition will define Evoke Communications as the leading provider of integrated Internet communication services
BOULDER, Colo.- June 21, 2000 - Evoke Communications, the leading provider of integrated Internet communication services, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Contigo Software, the pioneer and leading provider of Web-based collaboration products for sales, marketing and training applications. As a result of the acquisition, customers will enjoy enhanced powerful integrated communications and collaboration tools.
"Our goal is to become the global leader in Internet communication services by integrating and developing a broad range of tools to meet the diverse communication needs of businesses and consumers," said Paul Berberian, CEO of Evoke Communications. "The Contigo acquisition is a big step towards rapidly meeting this goal. Combined, Evoke Communications and Contigo will offer our customers a full suite of innovative services that use the Internet to create and deliver simple, effective communication."
As a result of the acquisition, Evoke Communications will expand its service offering to meet growing customer demand by incorporating true collaborative applications, such as whiteboarding and polling, into its existing service offering. Evoke Communications is the first to combine Web presentations and collaboration with traditional audio conferencing and streaming media to create a comprehensive, effective and reliable suite of Internet communication services for businesses.
Current Evoke Communications and Contigo customers can now take advantage of Evoke Communications' suite of Internet communications tools including live and on-demand audio and video streaming, Webconferencing, voice over IP and voice-to-email messaging. These services will be bolstered by Contigo's collaboration tools, including:
· Online whiteboarding - Moderators and participants can collaborate, conceptualize designs and outline schematics by simultaneously writing or drawing on a blank slide.
· Web touring - During a live or recorded event, moderators can guide an audience anywhere on the Web without allowing participants to "click away."
· Real-time and pre-planned polling - Gauge audiences during an event and view results as they arrive. Display results graphically either publicly or privately.
· Presentation annotation tools - Keep participants engaged and direct attention to sections of a slide by providing markup to any area of a presentation using arrows, color and highlighting.
· Live application viewing - Present full-functioning software demonstrations live or recorded for later playback. Designed for product demos and content development.
· Lead generation tools - A database captures event participant contact information, as well as customer and survey results for sales force lead generation and market analysis.
· Shared presenter control - Enables multiple moderators to share control of an event.
· Interactive chat - Moderators and participants can post text chat to one another throughout an event, with messages visible to all participants or kept private among selected users.
· Record & playback of live presentations - Record and archive collaborative presentations for public or private playback.
· Secure HTTPS environment - Encryption software protects company-confidential meetings, briefings and seminars from login to logout and protects users' content from unauthorized access.
· User brandable interface - From an intuitive branding interface, users can customize the product interface to reflect corporate branding of images, colors, text and logos.
· Platform independence on the client-side - The collaboration server platform runs on NT, Unix, and Linux operating systems. Moderators and participants can attend events using a java-enabled browser on any major platform.
"It was clear from the beginning that the combination of Evoke Communications and Contigo Software was as natural and synergistic as they come," said Bob Brown, President and Chief Operating Officer for Contigo Software. "It has been a perfect match in every way: Contigo products neatly fell into the Evoke Communications service continuum; strengths and weakness in market segments were complimentary; minimal sales channel overlap; and most importantly, a mirror image in corporate cultures and values."
Contigo is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Evoke Communications. Contigo offices, based in San Diego, will operate under the name Evoke Communications.
About Evoke Communications
Evoke Communications is a leading Internet communication service provider offering a comprehensive suite of Web-based voice, video and visual collaboration services that allows users to get business done better and faster. Evoke Communications' current services include Webconferencing, the company's flagship service, which enables on-demand conferencing, Webcollaboration, which allows users to communicate in real-time over the Internet, Webcasting, which provides audio and video streaming, Evoke Web Talk, which allows live voice and text chat, and Evoke Talking Email, which enables voice-to-email messaging. The company's "back end" service engines and system architecture converge voice, video and visuals into a single communication platform powering value-added services for some of the leading and most heavily visited sites on the Web. For more information, visit www.evoke.com or call 800.878.7326.
Contacts:
Robyn Phipps
303-928-3026
rphipps@evoke.com |
