Software maker Synchrony Communications Inc. dismissed 20 of its 140 workers this week in a restructuring move, as the company refocuses its sales efforts on larger companies.

        The downtown Cincinnati company was built as an application service provider, intended to provide its customer relationship management software to users via the Internet.

        But Synchrony's focus on middle-sized companies made sales difficult. The company trimmed its sales and marketing force by about two-thirds, and will instead focus on selling to Fortune 1,000 companies, spokeswoman Kathleen Riehle said.

        She said Synchrony has signed a deal with a “business service provider,” a company that hosts and markets a variety of applications for business.

        That company, to be named this month, will take over sales of Synchrony's software to middle-market companies.

        Synchrony makes software for corporate call centers — banks of operators taking phone calls from customers. Those operators also handle faxes, e-mail and online chat sessions.

        Synchrony's Java-based software combines messages from those sources, allowing operators to handle all four, and allowing the companies using the software to build records on customers' messages.

        The company's plan was to host the software on its own computers, where it could maintain and update it easily, and sell it on a subscription basis to customers.

        Customers include Great American Insurance, which also is an investor in Synchrony, and Procter & Gamble's Reflect.com beauty products Web site.

        The company has found, however, that large customers want to host the software on their own computers. Synchrony has been working since the summer to essentially put its software in a box.

        That work continues, Ms. Riehle said, and that version of Synchrony's software is being tested at West TeleServices of Omaha, Neb., a customer service contractor providing service for AT&T and DirecTV.

        West, with 24,000 employees around the United States, also is an investor in Synchrony.

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