Contactual Names David Sohm as President, COO; Changes Name

Contactual Inc., a provider of on-demand contact center products and services, named David Sohm as president and chief operating officer, a new role for the company.

Sohm, who started at the end of March, takes the president position from company founder and Chief Executive Mansour Salame, who had held both titles. The COO designation is a new one for the company.

Most recently at computer telephony provider Captaris Inc., Sohm served as president of the MediaLinq hosted document messaging business. Sohm joined MediaLinq in September of 1997 as vice president of sales and marketing.

Before joining MediaLinq Sohm held executive positions including vice president of products at Ramco Systems Corp., vice president of channels and partner marketing for Sybase Inc., and president of the Data3 business unit of The ASK Group, which was acquired by Computer Associates International Inc. Prior to Ask, Sohm spent twelve years at Hewlett Packard Co.

Contactual's Web-provisioned and configurable contact center product uses technologies such as VoIP and session-initiated protocol, with the goals of reducing costs and risks companies face when deploying customer service automation products and services.

Founded in 2000 as White PJ Inc., the company changed its name to ‘Contactual' and altered its business model in 2004.

The new sales approach is to license its products in addition to selling them directly, in order to cut costs and reach more potential clients, Sohm said. Two customers gained through direct sales are Patient Care Inc. and Telos Corp. Its first product licensee is NEC Business Solutions Australia, announced in January 2005.

Contactual has been funded by Norwest Venture Partners, Mayfield and Sofinnova Ventures.

The San Mateo-Calif.-based company has over 30 employees.