Kana to acquire Hipbone
Kana has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Hipbone, which offers online customer interaction solutions. The agreement is expected to close in the first quarter of 2004.
Hipbone was founded in 1998 and provides co-browsing, live chat and file sharing technologies for customer support and sales executives within banks, brokerage services and other financial institutions. These products are said to allow companies to provide live, online assistance at critical and opportune times, bringing the customer-agent exchange closer to that of an in-store, in-person encounter.
Kana says the addition of Hipbone's online assisted service channel to its iCare suite combines the power of Web collaboration in helping consumers through high-value online transactions with what Kana calls its "knowledge-powered" approach to managing customer relationships. The combination of these two solutions will also enable agent-to-agent collaboration within the contact center. Kana will offer Hipbone as a stand-alone product and will also integrate the Web collaboration solution into Kana Response, Kana Contact Center and Kana IQ to extend the functionality and value of those products.