Current Analysis analyst Brad Shimmin was among the first in a batch of experts trying out DiVitas’ newly released web client. While our web client runs on all of the popular smartphones, Brad’s device of choice is the iPhone. And all he had to do to get started was fire up his browser and punch in his password.

Among the things Brad liked about the DiVitas web client is its quick response time – after all, apps that don’t live up to their promise are among the chief complaints among iPhone users and DiVitas claims to offer real-time mobile communications.

“I have used a lot of interfaces and this is really quick and responsive,” says Brad, explaining that he was impressed by the fact that he was able to easily switch from an IM chat session to a voice call without the delay of changing modes. “I found the switchover to be really slick because it didn’t force me to jump around and leave my address book and look you up.”

Brad also liked the way the app takes advantage of familiar iPhone features and functions already familiar to iPhone users because “it utilizes the UI … not the symbols, but the contrivances that we understand very clearly.”

Although Brad communicated back and forth with the DiVitas team during his trial, he saw how an enterprise social networking application and integrated business number could help workgroups communicate more efficiently.

“I have a common work scenario in which I work with a team people and it is very important to be able to pull them together to solve a problem in real-time,” he said. “Unlike just a chat program with Presence, such as Yahoo messenger, this actually ties that chat to additional forms of communication – such as a business number – that are real-time communication tools.”

He explains that tying the application with a business number is a unique approach that gets around a lot of the problems that you see with web-based apps on mobile devices. “Normally whenever you do that with today’s smartphones you are breaking that UI and forcing users to jump between apps on their mobile devices.”

Brad described the exhaustive steps he goes through to contact team members, highlighting the problem DiVitas solves. “Typically if I’m sitting at my desk, I would look people up on Skype to see if they are available to chat, and if they don’t answer me I would go to my phone book would call, and if didn’t get them that way I would email them and ask for a shout back, and then I would try their mobile,” he says. “What DiVitas gives you is the escalation opportunities within one source.”

In contrast, with DiVitas, Brad could simply pick up his iPhone, scroll through his list of contacts, read the individual Presence and status updates … and then use the touch-dial pad to chat or call his colleague.

“That’s exactly the point of Presence. You want to be able to unify communications.”