Inside DiVitas

Mobile UC is economic- and business-justified

By Rich Watson

Mobile UC (of which FMC is a core component) actually leverages a company’s existing WLAN and PBX investments, which leads to a faster ROI because it helps offset the initial costs of these systems. Letting companies leverage existing investments to create faster ROI is a very compelling element of economic/business justification.

Additionally, companies are adopting Mobile UC for another key purpose – which also leads to an economic/business justification – and that is increased productivity through single number reach. A more productive worker saves, or generates, more money than employees who take longer times to do their jobs, or return calls to customers/partners/colleagues. Yup, enterprises love that increased-productivity stuff (probably as much as they love ROI). And we have the customers to prove it.

So DiVitas stands by its argument that by making mobile workers (1) continuously available (via voice, email or IM), and (2) at the least cost possible (by leveraging WiFi, thanks to FMC) and (3) more productive (by being more available to respond to customers/partners/colleagues), companies that deploy Mobile UC improve the bottom line.

This response was posted to the comment section on NetworkWorld and relates to a contributed article that we recently wrote.

For more information on DiVitas Mobile UC, please visit our website at www.divitas.com

Instant Messaging (IM) for enterprises: way better, faster, less expensive than sending a text message

By DiVitas Chief Blogger

Nearly everyone has a cell phone by now, and (maybe) nearly everyone knows by now that text messaging is an efficient way for consumers to stay in touch. It’s cheaper than calling by voice. It’s about as fast as email. But it’s not as good (read: real-time or cost efficient) as Instant Messaging (IM).

For those of you who don’t know: Text messaging is like email, but it’s meant for transmitting messages between mobile phones. It’s become a standard mobile-phone feature, but it costs about ten-cents-per-message to use it. As an email replacement for those of you who are on the go, and who need to constantly be in touch with your pals, it’s super convenient (and perhaps a bit fun, with all of the imaginative acronyms to choose from). Of course, loving text messaging assumes you don’t require an instant reply, and it assumes you don’t mind the incremental cost associated with sending a text message as trite as “TTYL” (talk to you later) or simply, “OK”.

Unlike text messaging, however, Instant Messaging (IM) is faster than text messaging. And it is as efficient as voice, but it has no additional cost when you've implemented a cellular data plan – which is why DiVitas chose to include it in our solution.

IM is a real-time exchange of information via software app, which both parties are logged into simultaneously. This means you can see who among your professional buddies are logged in at any given moment, and you accordingly can ping each other back and forth as quickly as you can say:

“meet me at starbucks to go over slides”

“time?”

“5 mins”

“ok”

Price? $.00

Text messaging has the allure of cheapness because it costs way less than making a mobile call – which can last a few minutes once you get your etiquette routine (hello, how are you, etc.) out of the way.

But text messaging can actually be super expensive. (I personally spent about $50 in overages last month alone thanks to this handy-but-spendy tool). And it’s not necessarily targeted to your professional circle, as business IM would be.

Truly, text messaging is more of a consumer thing. Think about it: Teens are famous for blowing out their parents’ monthly cell plans thanks to their text-messaging addictions: They think nothing of sending a continual stream of deep thoughts like, “LOL” and “ROFL.”

I can’t think of the last time business slides made me ROFL (Roll On the Floor Laughing) or LOL (Laugh out Loud)!

And believe me, those text messages quickly add up: According to a recent New York Times article (May 7, 2008), text messaging constituted 23 percent of Verizon Wireless revenue in the first quarter. That’s some serious coin. You don’t want that unchecked cost to be part of your business model.

Meanwhile, DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) is all about unity, saving money, and creating efficiency – which is why, as far as our solution goes, we have bypassed text messaging.

IM is as close to having a verbal conversation as you can get without hearing a voice – or reading lips – and that’s what you want to have handy as your efficient, quick, quippy business tool. And it can be tidily included in your cellular data plan. No added costs.

If you are a business professional who prefers IM to the more consumer-oriented, text-messaging method of fast-data-convo… No harm, no foul. IM is good news for all parties involved: carriers, end users and enterprises alike:

Carriers: Get to offer Mobile IM as a new enterprise application and, hence, increase the number of data plans they already sell.

End users: Get to reduce the number of text messages they send, thus lowering their monthly carrier bill. And they can still use quippy terms like LOL and TTYL.

Enterprises: Get to mobilize IM, which is now a mainstream business-communications tool. (ps. Enterprises pay for those monthly mobile worker bills, so they save money too).

IM has become a de facto, minimalist way of communicating a quick business thought or transaction. Taking IM on the road with you – where it could replace its more costly and consumerish text-messaging counterpart – is a win-win for enterprises, end users and carriers alike.

For more information on DiVitas Mobile UC, please visit our website at www.divitas.com

Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) to carriers: Let’s make love not war

Rich Watson

Trade show panels can be very lively, and the Convergence: Technologies and Strategies panel at this year’s Interop Las Vegas was no exception.

It was a full house and there was a steady stream of questions coming from the audience i.e. “When are products available and how do they differ?” DiVitas and an enterprise-FMC vendor we shared the stage with were quite vocal about our respective solutions approaches, while our counterparts (Cisco and Strata8 Networks) were pretty quiet. Cisco barely said anything, and oddly, didn’t even mention its Interop announcement with Nokia on Mobile Unified Communications.

For its part, Strata8 didn’t get far with its argument, but it did spark quite a reaction from the enterprise contingent. Speaking on behalf of the carriers, Strata8 argued that deploying femtocells to improve in-building cell signal would ultimately lighten the load of the enterprise. The logic behind that statement? Mobile communications would be improved and yet the carriers would be doing all of the heavy lifting because they would manage the mobile infrastructure.

Strata8 also implied that Mobile UC’s enterprise approach to mobilizing the workforce is too complex.

The enterprise contingent countered that argument, saying that an enterprise approach makes more sense because it takes away absolute control from the carrier. Essentially, Mobile UC is a real business tool vs. just an extension of the cell phone.

As for complexity? Mobile UC’s mantra is just the opposite (it reduces complexity). Adding Mobile UC to your WLAN environment is just an incremental adjustment to what you already have. Adding this on top is simpler than you think.

While the theme of the panel maintained a distinct carrier vs. enterprise tone, in the real world, there is a lot more to be said on the positive side about the carrier’s role as far as Mobile UC goes.

There is a golden opportunity for carriers who partner with companies like DiVitas, and this opportunity goes well beyond just voice & email. I’m talking about two new killer applications called Mobile Presence and Mobile IM.

These virgin technologies are key components of Mobile UC – and they both require a data plan. This translates into a new revenue stream for carriers, which have nearly saturated the market for mobile voice and email.

Here’s the logic behind this one. Presence is the broadcasted state of availability, and it helps people make better decisions about how and when to contact a colleague, a customer, a partner, etc. And if two people are available by IM, they are able to communication efficiently, in real-time. Give Presence and IM a mobility component, as we’ve done with the DiVitas solution, and you have one very powerful tool that businesses need today, and which must be delivered over a carrier’s data network.

People don’t want to waste time playing telephone tag, so Presence and IM (and that data plan) will get used a lot. Hopefully this opportunity will ring true for carriers soon, and we will begin to see more public displays of partnerships than adversarial sniping among carriers and Mobile UC vendors.