Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Lucent Technologies Inc is cutting the cost of its Passageway product for workgroup call centers by up to 75%. Passageway provides a connection between an incoming customer call and a customer database, routing the call to the right sales agent and displaying the customer’s records on the screen the moment the call is answered. Prices for a complete system will now be between $9,000 and $12,000 from more than $40,000 previously. The company said the cuts will expand the marketplace, increase the average size of installations and lead to an increased market for Lucent’s systems integration and consultancy services. Lucent and Novell Inc are partners in the technology, and the main competitor is Microsoft Corp.
