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Just before leaving for vacation I spoke with Jacada about the release of their new Jacada Fusion solutions. The solutions include Win Fuse, Web Fuse, and Host Fuse which provide non invasive integration to windows, Web and host applications. Jacada is focusing on solutions for contact centers.

Adding desktop and Web integration greatly expands the Jacada story, which was formerly more about Web services on the mainframe. Focusing on a specific market to sell solutions instead of technology is also a good strategy for Jacada. But what is also interesting is that Jacada is embracing Web 2.0 and providing an open platform that enables SOA. Web 2.0 is more about services than about packages, and here lies the lesson for buyers of solutions. While industry solutions can provide a quick fix, the ultimate return on investment depends on the agility of the solution to accommodate change. That is what SOA is all about.

And there is much in the new Jacada solutions to make SOA architects happy. While the current development environment is based on extensions to BEA’s WebLogic, Jacada plans to move to Eclipse, then JBoss and Websphere. They also plan to provide the ability for non-programmers to create scripts for call center agents. Agents will be able to design their own layouts by moving portlets around.

The Web 2.0 features include support for AJAX for rich client functionality, RSS feeds for syndicating content, and mash-up capability to combine content from multiple sources into an integrated experience.

What this amounts to is a number of features to enable adaptable solutions that provide core call center functionality and can be easily customized. The last point is what I think is the key feature companies should for in buying solutions. They should be easily customizable because you will always need to build or customize to provide competitive advantage.

Posted by bethgb at 10:36 AM in Vendor Briefings | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us

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