In a further consolidation of the call center market, Westford, Massachusetts-based Davox Corp has agreed to acquire Answersoft Inc in a tax free, stock for stock transaction that will result in a company with combined revenues of some $100m. Davox says it looked around before deciding on AnswerSoft as its target, but found that the combination of AnswerSoft’s Concerto product line and its own recently introduced LYRICall browser-based application/scripting design software made the most sense. Davox’s mainstream product line is the Unison range of call center software, while AnswerSoft has concentrated on inter- application automation technology such as smart screen pop, intelligent call routing, data mining and Internet-enabled call centers. Davox, which was founded in 1981 and posted $83.5m revenues in 1997, expects the acquisition of privately-held AnswerSoft, based in Richardson, Texas, to be dilutive to its earnings in the periods before and immediately after the transaction, but to be slightly accretive by the fourth quarter of 1998.
