Customer Service Software Industry Sees Tumultuous July

- Alert), the news wasn’t much better. The company had a major outage on July 10th, which impacted seven instances, reaching users throughout the world. It didn’t help that the pioneer in cloud-based customer service software had another major outage at the end of June. Media sources tend to be all over outages of this proportion, making it difficult to conduct damage control for those affected customers. 

While potential customer service software customers may be apprehensive about further outages, Salesforce.com seems confident in its longevity. The company recently purchased GoInstant, a Nova Scotia-based browser collaboration business. While this new entrant to the Salesforce.com family will remain its own entity, its co-browsing technology is sure to find its way into Salesforce.com offerings. 

Another competitor in the customer service software space, Oracle, also had its own rash of bad news and acquisitions this summer. The company announced its third major social media purchase when it bought Involver, yet found itself on the losing end of a Court of Justice of the European Union judgment.

Oracle had filed suit against UsedSoft for selling second-hand licenses in an effort to protect its proprietary offerings. Now, as a copyright holder, Oracle – and any other customer service software company – will be unable to prevent such a transaction. 

While no other outage release delays or judgments have been reported, acquisitions and revenue growth continue to be hot topics. KANA purchased contact center software provider, Ciboodle, and SAP reported revenue growth in the double digits. NetSuite (News - Alert) enjoyed a 29 percent jump in Q2 revenue and Infusionsoft has grown its customer base to 9,800, a 1,500 jump from Q1.  

Regardless of the provider, the customer service software industry is still a dynamic force, and the leaders in this space are making the investments necessary to claim a bigger share and stake their competitive advantage. Users are, as always, looking for performance and features that match the price, and those providers more focused on value are more likely to dominate.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.

Edited by Allison Boccamazzo
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