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8x8 (News - Alert), a provider of cloud communications and computing solutions, has just acquired Contactual, a provider of cloud-based call center and customer interaction management solutions. The deal is expected to close on September 30, 2011.

Since 2007, 8x8 has been selling Contactual's (News - Alert) call center technologies as part of its business communications suite and over the years has seen an increasing demand for these services from 8x8’s customers. According to a press release, this recent acquisition of Contactual will help to expand 8x8's suite of cloud services, which will in effect increase its role as a single source provider of SaaS (Software as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) business solutions within the industry.

8x8 channel partners will now have access to the multiple call center solutions that are provided through Contactual’s recently formed channel program which was created to allow partners to resell their suite of cloud based services.

At this time, 8x8 powers over 20 cloud services including VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), conferencing, video and cloud computing.

"8x8 is committed to becoming the industry's premier provider of cloud-based communications and mission critical services and applications to businesses of all sizes," said Bryan Martin (News - Alert), chairman and CEO of 8x8 in a statement. "The acquisition of Contactual is a natural extension of this strategy as it significantly broadens our technological expertise and service offerings in the customer interaction management and contact center space. At the same time, the acquisition allows us to realize operational cost savings and enhanced customer satisfaction resulting from the tighter integration of the Contactual technology platform within 8x8's services and network."

"Today, many of our largest customers are already subscribing to hosted call center services utilizing the Contactual platform, and we are seeing increased demand for these services from our large, channel-originated prospective customers," Martin added. "The Contactual solution has been proven in enterprise deployments with 8x8's communications services for more than four years and incorporates a world class user interface, rich multimedia feature set and outstanding reliability metrics. With the complete integration of this offering under one software and services platform, we will now be more fully integrating these capabilities into our existing services, and also be able to build even more competitively priced call center capabilities for our small business customer base."

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.