Acknowledged specialist to help promote rapid market penetration for ECT televoting solutions Munich, July 25th, 2006 The European Computer Telecoms Group (ECT) has appointed Werner Klötsch, Managing Director of digame.de GmbH, as a further member of its Supervisory Board. This move reinforces ECT's position as a leading provider of televoting solutions in Europe. The company will benefit both from Klötsch's many years of international experience in marketing value-added voice services and from his absolute commitment to ECT's technology.
Werner Klötsch heads up the management team at digame.de GmbH in Cologne, a company that specializes in interactive applications for mass media and TV. This company's landline and mobile communication services allowed viewers to cast votes for "Deutschland sucht den Superstar", for example, and to vote in 40 European countries for the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Before taking up his current post at digame.de, Klötsch served in a variety of positions. A spell as a consultant at Detecon GmbH was followed in 1998 by a move to Deutsche Telekom AG, where his mandate was to ramp up and consolidate value-added telephone services in Germany. In 1999, Klötsch set about successfully implementing a strategic reorientation at Deutsche Telekom's Value-Added Solutions division, developing customer-oriented value-added solutions and focusing on sales to key accounts. In October 2003, Klötsch joined digame.de GmbH in Cologne as Marketing and Sales Director. The first assignment in his new job was to give the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) the world's first ever central televoting system for 40 countries for the Eurovision Song Contest. In July 2004, he was appointed to head up the Managing Board at digame.de GmbH, and also took the reins at digame mobile GmbH in 2005. "I am really pleased to be serving on the Supervisory Board of the European Computer Telecoms Group," Klötsch said, commenting on his appointment. "I have closely followed the ECT Group's activities for a number of years. And I am excited about what I see. I would hope that my knowledge of interactive media and value-added services in Germany and Europe will help the group carve out an even better market position for its interactive media applications."
About digame.de GmbH
digame.de was founded in 1999 as a subsidiary of Twister Media Group B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 2000, digame.de collaborated with Deutsche Telekom AG to develop the 0137-9 service whose market rollout was an overwhelming success.
digame.de is the leading provider of interactive applications for mass media. An acknowledged specialist in this field, the company offers one-stop shopping for the full complement of interactive tools and products. One outstanding feature is the uncompromising professionalism of its interactive and creative end-to-end strategies for innovative TV formats. Key products include TV productions, televoting (0137), competitions, premium hotlines, chat services, SMS/MMS-based solutions and fax services. digame.de has already developed and realized interactive applications for almost all of Germany's major and most successful TV formats involving viewer participation (including Let's Dance, Deutschland sucht den Superstar, Star Search and Formula 1). Elsewhere in Europe too, digame.de has become a byword for excellence in complex multinational voting. In May 2004, digame.de and more than 120 telecommunication partners successfully launched the first ever central televoting system for the Eurovision Song Contest,
a pan-European voting platform spanning 40 countries.
About ECT's televoting service
ECT's televoting service is a highly complex televoting solution developed specially for high-profile megaevents that generate tremendous response volumes in a very short period. As many as 4000 calls per second can be handled effortlessly and processed individually by the system's powerful interactive voice response (IVR) function. The solution comprises the complete spectrum of functionality needed to cope with even the most sophisticated televoting services, such as those for lottery services, interactive game shows and other TV shows. In a browser-based interface that is as easy to learn as it is to use, call flows can be set up simply by creating links between icons. Inbound calls then follow the graphical roadmap. Defined call flows can be linked to any volume of service numbers and activated either manually or by an automated timer function. Both carriers and their customers can produce and manage their multimedia televoting campaigns in the integrated web portal itself. The solution features the
following administration options:
- User management
- Service production
- Campaign management
- Statistical functions
- Resource management
A modular architecture gives the ECT Televoting Service solution the stability it needs to field even millions of busy hour call attempts (BHCAs). Powerful web-based administration functions enable customers to produce and manage their own campaigns and services in real time with no need for any support from the carrier. IVR functionality plays recorded announcements, fields questions and determines the course of calls on the basis of the answers supplied. Extensive branching options allow individual callers or groups of callers who share common attributes to be filtered out of the call flow and then added to mailing lists for callback campaigns or put through to specific call centers. Text message functionality likewise dovetails seamlessly with the voting solution. Integrated measurement functions monitor caller behavior in real time and can forward the data to external systems for further processing. White lists and black lists also precisely regulate access to individual services.
The following call flow functions are provided:
- Internal database accesses (e.g. to query static and dynamic black and white lists)
- External database accesses (e.g. to customer databases) based on http requests
- Mailing lists
- Interactive voice response (IVR) functions for announcements, recordings, menus etc.
Announcements can be updated online at any time in the form of wave files
- Call measurement to monitor the performance of current campaigns in real time
- Branching functions that are independent of origin, data, time, day of the week, call volume and current gaming/show status
- VoiceXML and JavaScript programming to implement even the most complex applications
About the European Computer Telecoms Group (ECT)
Established in 1998, ECT develops and enables value-added voice services for leading fixed and mobile operators worldwide. Our parent company, the European Computer Telecoms AG, is an unlisted German public company with world-class engineering and production facilities in Munich, Germany. Within Europe, our local direct sales and maintenance services are provided by wholly-owned subsidiaries in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. We also work closely with value-added resellers, global integrators and OEM partners worldwide. ECT is first and foremost a company of entrepreneurs which is reflected in our outstanding business development. The products we implement for our customers are judged on the basis of their commercial performance, and within our company, we also pay strict attention to that most important business criterion: profitability. In 2004, we earned 4.4 million euros before tax, interest and depreciation with consolidated net retained profits of over 4.5 million euros and approximately the same amount of money in liquid funds at the close of the year. To ensure transparency for our customers, we publish our audited consolidated accounts annually and we expect our annual report for 2005 to show total revenue of nearly 20 million euros with even higher earnings and retained profits. In 2004 and 2005, ECT received the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award as one of Germany's fastest-growing technology companies. The ECT Group currently encompasses 125 employees.
For further press information:
European Computer Telecoms AG
Axel Schaefer
Director Marketing
Westendstrasse 160
80339 Munich
Germany
Tel.: (0049) 89/ 55 29 47 911
Fax: (0049) 89/ 55 29 47 - 111
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