Interactive intelligence.

• Author: Roberts, John
• Position: Interactive Intelligence Inc., computer-telephony company - Company Profile

Don "Doc" Brown's newest software company ready to change the communications industry.

The marriage of computer and telephone is an inevitable union, and an Indianapolis software company is one of the early players walking up the aisle.

Interactive Intelligence Inc. is among the players in the emerging niche called computer-telephony integration, or CTI for short. But Interactive Intelligence hopes to leap-frog the competition by creating a purely software-based computer-telephony solution that does away with proprietary telecommunications equipment, the "telecom boxes" found in back rooms of most businesses with multiple phones.

Until now, most companies have had to buy or lease a myriad of expensive, proprietary and often confining telecom components for their communication needs: PBX, voice response, voice mail, web server and the like. "These boxes are boat anchors when you buy our software solution," claims Dr. Donald E. Brown, co-founder of Interactive Intelligence. "You don't even need a handset telephone on your desk because everything is in the computer."

The development could have huge implications in business communications. Companies setting up call centers can use open standards with Windows NT and buy computers of their choice for a client/server environment, then add the software to get a complete telecommunications system that also provides Internet applications delivering a variety of interaction communications.

"The real power is under the hood, but the real fun is on the client's desktop," says John R. Gibbs, the company's other co-founder. "Our 'Interaction Client' is the software phone on your screen where you can handle numerous calls at once, see who is calling, send them directly to voice mail, listen in on voice mail, pull people out of voice mail, record calls, conference calls, forward calls, place calls and so on, all by a click of a mouse. We also have a universal in-box where all e-mail, voice mail, faxes, web-callback requests and other interactions reside...all in one place on one screen. I can respond to communications in the order that I deem important, not in the order or fashion that they are presented to me."

Those familiar with the Indiana software industry will recognize Don Brown's...