Inside DiVitas

NetEvents hot topic: FMC saves you money

By Gordon Young

Last month I got to do two of the things I love best. I hung out on the Mediterranean, and I talked about the benefits of DiVitas.

I was part of the DiVitas team that attended NetEvents held in Barcelona last month. This is an annual event for us where we update the European press on DiVitas news. I enjoy chatting with press, but for me, the highlight of the event was speaking on the FMC panel. The NetEvents keynote, given by British Telecom’s Rakesh Mahajan (a.k.a Rocky), centered on FMC. This topic was therefore a major topic of discussion at the event, giving the panel the momentum it needed for a lively discussion.

It was interesting having BT on the panel with me because it turned out that we are very much on the same page. At some junctions we have different methods for arguing the cost benefits of Mobile Unified Communications (DiVitas’ class of FMC). But in the end we are in agreement: Help businesses lower the bottom line.

As far as cost savings, DiVitas focuses on two benefits. One is the cost savings associated with FMC/Mobile UC due to reduced spending on mobile minutes and reduced international roaming costs. At the same time, we both (DiVitas and BT) like to highlight the productivity benefits associated with FMC/Mobile UC, which also results in cost savings. When workers are more reachable, they are more efficient and productive. And Mobile UC maximizes reachability for any employee – whether they are road warriors or corridor warriors.

It’s pretty easy to explain how Mobile UC lets companies save money on their cell bills and international roaming costs: use fewer minutes, make fewer international calls over the cellular network – save money.

It may take a bit longer to explain the productivity benefits, including how increasing reachability, efficiency and productivity can translate into money saved. But this is an easy explanation as well:

Take the healthcare industry as an example where increased productivity directly impacts the bottom line. Healthcare workers are highly mobile and they have a great need for voice and messaging access via WiFi. This is because hospitals have notoriously thick walls that render cell phones useless from inside the building. And WiFi provides an excellent mobile-network alternative.

Without Mobile UC, it can take nurses working inside a hospital up to 15 minutes to retrieve patient test results. First, nurses must find a desk phone in order to request test results. Then they must wait to be paged in order to be notified when results are ready. Once paged, they drop what they are doing and return to the desk phone to collect results.

In contrast, nurses using Mobile UC can shave as much as ten minutes off the same task. Dual-mode phones with WiFi access allows them to place a call from anywhere on the hospital campus. Here’s the math.

1) Requesting and retrieving patient results happens at least five times per day.

2) Nurses save at least 50 minutes per day.

3) In an average hospital with 800 nurses on duty per day, the result is a total savings of 650 hours per day.

BT and DiVitas agree that FMC lets you do more with less, which translates to cost savings. We just have a variety of ways of going about expressing that view point. I enjoyed being able to deliver the DiVitas viewpoint from such a fabulous location – all the while knowing I wouldn’t miss a call, thanks to my DiVitas mobile phone.

FMC Travel Recap: Interop New York

By Vivek Khuller

I traveled recently for several months, solidly. I expect to be on the road a lot this year as well, but in the meantime, I’m giving a recap of my recent journeys to London, Lisbon and New York.

Jenni and I went to New York to spend some time at Interop. Although we did not have a booth at this show (we had one in Las Vegas 2007), we attended the show because, in part, I was invited to sit on an FMC panel. While on this panel, the key message I put forth was how carriers can benefit from our solution.

There is a major incentive for carriers to embrace mobile convergence. What is the first thing an enterprise will do once it adopts mobile convergence? It will buy data plans for all of its end users. This translates to a lot of money going straight into carrier pockets. It also gives carriers the opportunity to lock in their customers for a longer period of time, with no threat of losing their business when plans expire. Who wants to go back to a more expensive solution? Deploying a mobile unified convergence system takes the burden off of renewing cell phone plans and enables more architectural wins. What’s not to love about that?

Mobile-convergence technology has arrived. What we need now is for dual-mode phones to catch up and let us finish the job. Dual-mode phone users expect an experience equal to what they get with their personal cell phones today. Given the upside to being a mobile-convergence proponent, carriers should encourage handset manufacturers to innovate in technology areas such as improving battery life and WiFi performance.

Mobile convergence is a win-win for DiVitas and carriers. Hopefully carriers will see the light very soon.

Stay tuned for my next travels and my reflections on DiVitas and our market.

Travel Recap: Lisbon

By Vivek Khuller

I traveled recently for several months, solidly. I expect to be on the road a lot this year as well, but in the meantime, I’m giving a recap of my recent journeys to London, Lisbon and New York.

After visiting London to attend our first channel summit, I made a stop in Lisbon.

Nokia’s annual worldwide channel conference was our next big adventure. The event was held in Lisbon and more than 200 of Nokia’s channel partners were invited. We had the honor and privilege of being the only small company included in this exclusive event.

Attending this conference gave us a chance to better understand Nokia as a company, build relationships with Nokia folks and build relationships with Nokia’s top partners.

Once again, with formal work stuff out of the way, it was time to have fun DiVitas-style.

We did some sight-seeing and got a fantastic education about Portugal. One big thing I learned was how similar Lisbon is to San Francisco as far as its culture and environment (not to mention its bridge- which looks much like the Golden Gate Bridge). For example, its neighborhoods are built around hills and they are all connected by an extremely good network of trams.

Travel Recap: London

By Vivek Khuller

Like most CEOs, I travel a lot, and the past few months have been no exception to that. Although I accomplish a lot while on the road, most of my computer time is spent answering e-mail, and unfortunately I haven’t had time to blog for the past few months. The good news is things have settled down and I’ll be posting monthly (alongside some other DiVitians who like to get their thoughts on “paper”).

No matter the destination or the mission, I try to make the most of my time when I travel. The highlights of my most recent travels were London, Lisbon and New York.

My first stop on my latest journey started in London.

We recently held our first channel sales conference and it was done DiVitas-style (we have fun but we are cost-effective at the same time). The conference was in London and so in keeping with the locale, we started early morning (despite terrible rain and foggy weather) with a traditional English breakfast. We allowed 30 minutes for networking and getting to know each other, and then we jumped in. Gordon, our VP of sales, gave the opening speech and then I made a presentation in which I talked about the company: philosophy, marketing strategy, channel marketing strategy and a technology roadmap.

Right. With all of the formal stuff out of the way, it was time to have fun.

We rented a Mercedes race track and allowed two attendees to drive a Mercedes of their choice, as fast as they could for thirty minutes. The lucky drivers were rewarded for answering the most questions about the lecture based on a pop quiz, which they were given at the end of the presentations. The rest of us watched the “racers” while eating lunch by the track. I’m sure some folks were kicking themselves for not paying closer attention.

We recruited new partners and everybody had fun, so I consider the day to have been a total success. Joanne (part of the UK sales and marketing team) did an awesome job organizing the event.

Later that evening, the DiVitas folks went to a typical English pub and did some US/UK bonding over warm beer and bangers.

While in London, we also took time to brief the European press about what’s been happening at DiVitas over the past six months. The last time we met with the Euro-press was at NetEvents in February, and a lot has happened since then. Europe has been a great market for us. Look for us at NetEvents again this Feb.