New chat software coming from QuestionPoint

Word is slowly trickling out about what the new version of QuestionPoint may look like. My library just received an e-mail a few days ago with some details, all of which seem to repeated on this new page on the QuestionPoint web site. The library where I work has been a 24/7 Reference customer since January 2003 (although I had been playing around with trials of it as far back as 2000). When QuestionPoint first came out with its own chat product, I didn't even consider it as a software our library should consider: no co-browsing, slower than molasses, and no way to set up a cooperative chat service since there was no way to transfer calls).

I haven't heard anything about whether the "best of breed chat software" that QuestionPoint is working on has solved any of the problems that firewalls cause with co-browsing. QuestionPoint is on, what seems to me, a rushed schedule (there's a demo planned for VRD in San Francisco in mid-November) and a launch in January. I don't know how they plan to do all the training as well as work out the kinks.

Consider me worried for now...not a lot, but also not a little. The two cooperative chat reference services (one for public libraries, another for academic libraries) that 24/7 Reference brought to the table at the time of the merger in the summer of 2004 were two of its most valuable assets (the third would have to be the modified version of eGain software that powered the service). This is THE critical moment for OCLC to prove to 24/7 Reference customers (who had to swallow a big jump in subscription costs after the merger) that it can serve them well.