13 December 2006

Telemarketing calls: we hate them. But the business of calling people at inopportune moments is big business; the so-called
outbound dialing market will reach over $200 million by 2011, Frost & Sullivan predicts.

For businesses that want to conduct outbound dialing operations on the cheap, several open-source software packages are available
for evaluation.

Outbound dialing, or predictive dialing systems use software and PBX interfaces to automate the massive amounts of phone calls
made in a telemarketing campaign. The systems typically dial numbers from a database, and give call center agents the option
of picking up the first call that answers. This maximizes time and allows more calls per hour. Such systems are traditionally
offered as expensive add-on software for large automatic call distributor (ACD) systems, which are also expensive gear.