Anthony Church of CommSoft has revealed that his company CommSoft (Europe) Ltd is to merge with US development partner, RMS. Church says, ‘We started to work together on the self install version of our new product CommsOffice 15 months ago. RMS has been around for over 15 years, focused in our industry but mainly selling direct to market. They have been operating a self install configuration practice for several years, with great success, for their product portfolio. Ian Foote, CEO of RMS, has more than proved the ability of his company and their level of commitment is excellent: they are prepared to put in whatever is asked on the development side.
Over the last year or so we have built an extremely good working relationship and we both realised that the joining together of both product skill sets and markets was a mutually beneficial. The deal has been very straightforward to organise, with no show stoppers or issues, their approach is always flexible and positive. The way forward for us both is that the new company will operate globally, opening further offices across Europe and the Americas.
RMS already operates in the US, Australia and New Zealand, and combining this with our current outlets in Holland and Switzerland gives us the capacity for global cover both on support and marketing. This in itself will attract bigger corporate clients that will enjoy the comfort of global support. Our product portfolio will double in the New Year and development is well underway for total integration. CommSoft have always been renowned for high quality products and this reputation will grow as existing RMS products have proved to be just as good and in some cases even better than our own. There is an atmosphere and level of excitement in our organisation that I have never seen before, so we are all very excited about the merger’, concludes Church.
RMS, established for over 15 years, is a US leader in the development of call management software solutions. RMS has an excellent reputation for innovative products and customer service with offices in the US and Australia and a distribution network which stretches across Africa and the Indian Ocean. ‘CommSoft now have distribution across the UK and Europe and this merger goes a long way towards global coverage and consolidates our position as the leading communications management solution provider’ adds Church.
The official announcement is due to be made at the Convergence Summit at Sandown Park, Surrey which runs from the 10th to 11th October. ‘We feel that the Summit offers the perfect platform to unveil our new partnership’, says Bonnie Church, Marketing Director of CommSoft. ‘There is always a ‘buzz’ around our stand as it is but this year, we are launching two new products plus major feature enhancements to our voice recording solution, so this announcement is just the icing on the cake’, she adds. The CommSoft stand will be staffed by CommSoft and RMS personnel, giving resellers the opportunity to meet some of the US team.
The new company is likely to have a new name, to be announced over the next few weeks along with a new web site which will enable resellers to download software and order on-line for rapid turnaround of software licences. The site development has cost in the region of £70,000 but CommSoft feel that this money well spent to bring telecommunications software order processing into line with the rest of the software world.
Resellers will be issued with a ‘reseller log in’ which will eventually allow them to obtain instant quotations and pricing, thereby eradicating the problem of account managers being unavailable when urgent quotes are required. This will also ensure accuracy of quotes and eliminate costly errors. Another advantage of this new ordering facility is that dealers can set up payment parameters via their ‘reseller log in’. For example, end user customer’s payment terms can be set at 30 days net and if payment is not received by the reseller within 30 days, the software can then be temporarily suspended until payment is received by the reseller. ‘The industry is plagued with customers that have slow payment profiles and with aged debtors so we feel that this new feature will assist suppliers, distributors and resellers with cash flow issues’ says Anthony Church.