Alvaria, Inc. formerly Aspect Software, is an American multinational

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

company that sells

call center A call centre ( Commonwealth spelling) or call center ( American spelling; see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone ...

and

customer experience Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described the ...

(CX) software technology to large enterprises. The company is headquartered in

Westford, Massachusetts Westford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was at 24,643 at the time of the 2020 Census. History Westford began as 'West Chelmsford', a village in the town of Chelmsford. The village of West Chelmsfor ...

. In 2021, Aspect purchased Noble Systems Corporation; the resultant organization was officially announced in September 2021 as Alvaria, Inc. Alvaria has offices in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America.

History

Aspect was founded under the name Aspect Communications in 1973, when its software powered the first call center flight booking system with an intelligent Automatic Call Distributor. In 2005, Aspect Communications was acquired by Concerto Software for $1 billion, with the new entity called Aspect Software. Concerto was created in 2002 when Davox Corporation acquired CELLIT and renamed itself Concerto Software, Inc. In 2006, Aspect borrowed $1.16 billion to finance its international expansion. In 2006, Aspect opened its first office offshore in

Bangalore, India Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

. In 2011, Aspect opened a facility in Ireland. In 2012, Aspect had its credit rating lowered by

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is co ...

because of the large amount of debt. In 2015,

Moody's Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides internation ...

lowered its credit rating as well. In March 2016, Aspect filed for bankruptcy to reduce its debt load, and emerged from

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whet ...

in May 2016. In 2012, most of the management was replaced with a new team led by Stewart Bloom. Over the next year, Aspect relocated its headquarters to

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the o ...

. In 2013, Aspect invested into Bright Pattern and acquired

Voxeo Voxeo Corporation was a technology company that specialized in providing development platforms for unified customer experience (self-service) and unified communications (real time communications) applications. Voxeo was headquartered in Orlando, ...

. In 2015, Aspect acquired LinguaSys to add natural language messaging capabilities. LinguaSys technology became the basis of Aspect's

Natural Language Understanding Natural-language understanding (NLU) or natural-language interpretation (NLI) is a subtopic of natural-language processing in artificial intelligence that deals with machine reading comprehension. Natural-language understanding is considered an ...

component for the Aspect CXP platform. The technology was used to create a chatbot for the supermarket chain

Lidl Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (; ) is a German international discount retailer chain that operates over 11,000 stores across Europe and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, the company belongs to the Schwarz Group, w ...

, that won the 2018 Best Consumer Chatbot award at the CogX AI conference, beating X.ai and Microsoft's

Xiaoice Xiaoice (, IPA ) is the AI system developed by Microsoft (Asia) Software Technology Center (STCA) in 2014 based on emotional computing framework. In July 2018, Microsoft Xiaoice released the 6th generation. Xiaoice Company, formerly known as A ...

. In 2016, Aspect released Via Customer Engagement Center, including various products from Aspect's portfolio. Later in 2019, Aspect was acquired by Vector Capital. In 2021, after acquiring and merging with Noble Systems Corporation, Aspect Software, Inc was renamed to Alvaria, Inc.

Acquisitions

In 2008, Aspect formed an alliance with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

with the latter making an investment in Aspect. Later in 2008, Aspect acquired Massachusetts-based BlueNote Networks. In 2009, Aspect acquired UK-based AIM Technology. In 2010, Aspect acquired St. Louis-based Quilogy. In 2013, Aspect acquired

for $150 million. In 2015, Aspect acquired LinguaSys In 2021, Aspect merged with Noble Systems Corporation to form Alvaria. In 2022, Alvaria acquired Cicero Inc.

Products

*Alvaria Cloud, formerly Aspect Via, cloud call centre software. *Alvaria CX Suite, combines Aspect Unified IP, Aspect ALM, Noble CC and Noble OnQ *Alvaria Workforce (WFM) *Alvaria Employee Experience (EX) *Alvaria Real Time Optimizer *Alvaria Mobile

Awards and recognition

Aspect Software was recognized by industry analyst firms such as

Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is an American business consulting firm. It offers market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training. It has about 45 offices in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe; the principal office is in S ...

References

{{reflist, 30em Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Software companies established in 1973 Software companies of the United States