Mobile Instant Messaging

A recent Forrester Research report talks about social networking issues that need to be resolved in the face of the skyrocketing use of mobile social networking among consumers – issues that are in fact already being addressed by DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) on the enterprise side.

“People have separate identities in each social network they visit,” writes Dan Butcher, the author of a Mobile Marketer article based on Forrester’s findings that states the number of mobile social networking users has doubled in the last six months. Butcher also writes that the future of social networking for consumers will be one where “universal social IDs will enable a portable identity … mobile phones will become the hub of social computing activities—the glue that holds the social graph together.”

I think that’s a smart prediction, especially because DiVitas has already identified and addressed this single-identity need among business social networking users.  

DiVitas’ Enterprise Social Networking platform mobilizes the existing deskphone number to provide Business Voice on a smartphone – and ties it with secure Instant Messaging (IM) and Social Networking (Mobile Presence and Status) to give individuals a single business-number identity. Whether DiVitas users are seated at their desks, roaming the corporate corridors or standing in the security line at the airport, there is just one number by which they can be reached.

• Mobile Presence is displayed on the DiVitas smartphone’s interface as an icon similar to Yahoo IM (showing emoticons to indicate if you are available, not available.) However, DiVitas' Presence icon also shows whether you are reachable by voice or IM chat, or maybe you are temporarily on a call and all together unavailable for communication (in which case Do Not Disturb calls go straight to voicemail.)
   
• Status message is coupled with the Mobile Presence icon on a DiVitas smartphone, providing an additional level of detail to availability about where you are and what you are doing (i.e. at the airport waiting for a 5pm flight).

Indicating the window of opportunity for a call or real-time chat is powerful knowledge and a great contributor in the quest to reduce missed calls and connect on the first attempt. Adding to that, having a single business identity – your moblized business number – eliminates any confusion about the best number to reach and be reached.

Expanding on TechTarget’s article, Presence, IM power mobile UC with or without fixed mobile convergence – absolutely! DiVitas agrees that being able to broadcast your Mobile Presence and Status is the best way to ensure you connect with colleagues on the first try. In fact, we’ve developed our Enterprise Social Networking solution around this issue.

However, not all Mobile Presence is created equal. DiVitas’ Presence technology provides a uniquely deep level of information about an individual’s availability. For Presence to be truly useful, it must convey far more than simply “available or unavailable.”

• Mobile Presence is displayed on the DiVitas phone’s interface as an icon similar to Yahoo IM (showing a happy face to say if you are available, not available.) However, DiVitas' Presence icon also shows whether you are reachable by voice or IM chat, or maybe you are temporarily on a call, and you are all together unavailable for communication (in which case calls go straight to voicemail).
   
• DiVitas Mobile Presence also communicates a person’s location, activity and network connectivity. Various Presence components allow people to obtain information about others and use that information to engage in the most efficient and economical way. For example, if I can see via your Mobile Presence that you are in London and on cellular, I would much rather IM you than talk -- to save on international calls. However if I know we are both on WiFi, I could choose to talk instead because the call is a free WiFi call and I might prefer a voice conversation.
   
• Status message is coupled with the Mobile Presence icon on a DiVitas smartphone, which provides an additional level of detail to availability about where you are and what you are doing (i.e. at the airport waiting for a 5pm flight). Indicating the window of opportunity for a call or chat is powerful knowledge and a great contributor in the quest to reduce missed calls and connect on the first attempt.

DiVitas takes the Presence and mobile Instant Messaging (IM) aspect of Mobile UC farther by making it an Enterprise Social Networking platform. By mobilizing the business number onto a mobile phone and tying it to voice, IM and Social Networking - Mobile Presence and Status - DiVitas ensures that the mobile workforce is always reachable, whether individuals are in- or out-of-office.

In her article, TechTarget’s Jessica Scarpati writes: “Mobile unified communications (UC) has become more than just voice over Wi-Fi [and cellular]. Enterprises can improve communication and collaboration by investing in other mobile UC applications, such as presence and IM that can integrate with smartphones, whether enterprises rely on their cellular data networks or fixed-mobile convergence to do so."

(Footnote: The key thing is that these mobile social networking tools must be integrated. Just having a bunch of tools on your phone does not provide total story.)

Agreeing with TechTarget’s Scarpati, Vanessa Alvarez, a unified communications analyst at Frost & Sullivan, is quoted as saying: "…the last [place] you want [employees] to be is behind a desk. You want them on the move, but at the same time you want them connected as if they were in the office."

Alvarez also says: “… as [presence] evolves it'll state what you're doing and the best way to reach you.”

Well, Vanessa, Mobile Presence has evolved and it is here today.  Welcome to DiVitas.

Delivering Mobile UC (deskphone number, social networking, voice and IM) onto smartphones as a Web-based application lets organizations inexpensively transform themselves into a secure collaborative, mobile community.

The business market is currently underserved on both the mobility and social networking fronts –frequently leaving billions of employees out of touch and unproductive. Without mobile phones, colleagues can’t collaborate with one another when they are away from their desk, which makes it difficult to do their jobs. And all too often employees close the mobility gap by using their personal phones for business communication.

The fact is, only 30% of the people using their mobile phone for work get compensated. On the other hand almost everyone is provided a desk phone for use at work.

Given that total mobile market penetration in the US has almost reached 90%, there is a massive benefit to mobilizing existing work deskphones on to smartphones. This will give people single number reach, letting them use the same device to make and receive business and/or personal calls.

By using a Web-based Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) app to deliver deskphone number, social networking (Mobile Presence and Status), voice and IM (mobile Instant Messaging) onto personal smartphones, companies reduce cellular costs while gaining productivity. This is because these businesses gain mobile VoIP while avoid having to buy additional smartphones for non-mobilized employees.

At the same time they have the assurance of enterprise security because the Mobile UC solution is delivered to personal mobile devices as a Web app that is under IT control. Just as with phones on the PBX system, only authorized users with a PBX managed extension or DID can be part of the community.

In addition to mobilizing their deskphone numbers, users have access to social messaging tools that create a collaborative community that is equally secure.

• Mobile Presence is displayed on the phone’s interface (icon similar to Yahoo IM showing a happy face to say if you are available, not available, etc.), which communicates a person’s location, availability, activity and network connectivity. Various Presence components allow people to obtain information about others and use that information to engage in the most efficient and economical way. For example, if I can see via your Presence that you are in London and on cellular, I would much rather IM you than talk (to save on international dialing costs). However, if your Mobile Presence information said that you were on WiFi, I could choose to talk because the call is free and I might prefer a voice conversation.
   
• Status – a Status message is coupled with the Mobile Presence icon to give an additional level of detail to availability about where you are and what you are doing (i.e. at the airport waiting for a 5pm flight).
   
• Secure Social Networking - Similar to corporate email, this is a closed, enterprise 2.0 solution so access is limited to authorized group of people (colleagues within your organization).

Mobile devices by their very nature (first-and-foremost a communications device) are the perfect delivery platform for integrating voice, IM and the deskphone number with secure social networking. Using a Web-based solution, companies can securely mobilize more of their workforce – and realize the benefits of mobile enterprise mobility and collaboration – without purchasing additional phones for every individual.

DiVitas CEO Vivek Khuller recently sat down with editors from the San Jose Business Journal to talk about our company.

Explaining how DiVitas enables Enterprise 2.0 social networking capabilities on a mobile phone running Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) to affordably create a more mobile workforce.

“… DiVitas sells software that enables businesses to mobilize employees’ deskphones onto their smartphones. DiVitas is differentiated in two ways: First, the product combines voice with familiar social networking tools such as instant messaging, status updates and presence on either device. Second, DiVitas allows users to roam freely between cellular networks and WiFi hotspots without dropping calls.”

He also highlighted a few of our mobile VoIP customers who have benefitted from reduced missed calls and reduced cellular costs, as well as improved enterprise mobility.

“…the U.S., the rail giant CSX Corp. uses DiVitas to keep its rail operations personnel accessible on mobile phones in areas without cellular coverage. VoIP carriers Sawtel Inc. and Clearfly Communications Inc. use DiVitas to mobilize their existing VoIP fixed lines and offer new services. In Finland, midsize company SGN Group uses DiVitas to make all its employees accessible via company desk-phone numbers and instant messaging using mobile”

To read the complete article visit the San Jose Business Journal.

Enterprise Social Networking is beginning to rival voice as a must-have app for mobile communications.

Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter and Facebook first gained popularity among consumers as stationary applications. Users share personal information and interact with one another from their computers to stay apprised of where their buddies are and what they are doing.

But along with the recent smartphone craze – a phenomenon that has gripped the mobile phone market since the iPhone was released two years ago – has come demand for mobile phone-access to user-centered, collaborative apps. And Enterprise Social Networking -- Mobile Presence and voice capabilities, which wrap around a business number and mobile  Instant Messaging (IM) and run as an integrated package on a smartphone -- falls squarely in that trend.

In fact, Enterprise Social Networking and voice complement one another to create a perfect mobile-communications application match. Particularly when they integrate tightly with the mobile phone they are running on, and when they tie directly with the business number associated with the end user for single number reach.

DiVitas addresses this business demand head-on with our Enterprise Social Networking solution.

DiVitas uses Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) to mobilize an existing deskphone number and tie it with Enterprise Social Networking, which includes Mobile Presence and Status, on a mobile device, making it easier for individuals to reach one another. With DiVitas, mobile Enterprise 2.0 and business voice capabilities reside side-by-side on a single mobile device. This makes text-based and voice-based communication equally accessible to the mobile user.

DiVitas moves an existing business number to a smartphone by integrating with legacy PBXs, which creates a mobile deskphone. In addition, DiVitas provides directory access to all contacts directly from the smartphone interface. This means all applications within the DiVitas solution – voice, business number, IM and Social Networking capabilities – leverage this integrated directory of contacts.

Consumer Social Networking tools have already laid a Presence-aware foundation that is educating the business community about the value-add of having collaborative apps (i.e. Mobile Presence) in the workplace. Now combining these capabilities with a mobilized business number, to run as an integrated solution on a smartphone – as DiVitas has done – will help employees work more efficiently, and it will affordably improve enterprise mobility.

Dear Mr. President,

I wasn’t at all surprised to see the online inquiry your office made about the DiVitas Enterprise Social Networking capabilities this week.

Everybody is well aware of how hard you lobbied to keep your Blackberry smartphone after you took office. After all, in this era of on-the-go communications, even Presidents can feel the addiction of having mobile email and texting capabilities. And then there’s Twitter, which played a major role in your Presidential campaign.

Let’s face it. You are a person who likes to stay connected, and you are one who appreciates, and takes advantage of, apps that keep friends, fans and colleagues in the loop.

At the same time, as President, you understand the need to balance Social Networking with security. Blasting out your Status to eager followers or sending a text message to your campaign staff is one thing. But when that text message reveals info that could threaten national security – which pretty much describes a president’s sphere of information – it’s time to rethink the information-sharing strategy.

And this is why your office needs, and is apparently seeking, a secure application for collaboration and Status-sharing within the presidential community. So I can absolutely understand your interest in investigating DiVitas Enterprise Social Networking capabilities.

While Twitter and Facebook are ideal for consumer use (and hence run the risk of information security breaches), Enterprise Social Networking included in DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) is appropriate – and secure – for business. Through DiVitas, organizations like the presidential office can send secure IM or broadcast status information to a pre-defined community like “The Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Once your community is defined, you can be confident that information is contained within that specific group.  Hence, there is no worry associated with information getting into the wrong hands.

Organizations deploying DiVitas enjoy the benefit of business voice (deskphone number) combined with Social Networking (Mobile Presence, mobile Instant Messaging (IM) and Status message) and placed onto a smartphone – without sacrificing information security. This is because DiVitas limits access to a specific, and secure, group of people (colleagues within your organization).

Addressing the need for Enterprise Social Networking, Mobile UC:

• Has a customizable Status message to broadcast exactly what you are doing at a given moment – a must-have when you need to know if a colleague is reachable. Personal Status messages such as “meeting with congress about healthcare” or, “about to board Air Force One” speak volumes when you need to let authorized colleagues know your whereabouts.
   
• Uses Mobile Presence to broadcast your status to your entire community (users within your organization i.e. the presidential office.) One glance at the directory displayed on your DiVitas smartphone and you can see who is available (by voice and/or text) or unavailable at any given moment.  
   
• Enables Instant Messaging (IM) so that colleagues can discreetly send each other brief text messages – handy when you are meeting with foreign leaders and a voice conversation isn’t appropriate, convenient or necessary!

If you or your executive staff were to use DiVitas Mobile UC instead of consumer apps such as Twitter or Facebook for Social Networking, your office could set aside fears of security breaches. At the same time, individuals in the organization would be able to take advantage of the productivity-enhancing collaboration and sharing benefits offered by social media.  

And you could even add The First Lady to your community, enabling her to easily and securely send you an IM asking you to pick up a quart of milk on your way home from the office.

Facebook Mobile has gone from 20 million to 65 million users – a more than threefold gain – in just eight short months, according to ZDnet. But the reason why that’s interesting for purposes of the DiVitas blog is not because Facebook is a meaningful tool for enterprises.

It’s because a 200% increase is a valuable statistic demonstrating how important it has become to have access to Social Networking apps while on-the-go. And this is true because Mobile Presence and Status info becomes even more significant when users are wanting to, or needing to, let contacts know where they are and what they are doing – despite the fact that they aren’t hunkered down in front of a computer. Mobile Presence and Status are two key components of Enterprise Social Networking and help improve enterprise mobility while reducing mobile costs.

If you’re wondering why your Facebook friend, Fred, hasn’t answered your email, or why he’s not online to chat, just check his Mobile Presence (a.k.a. “What’s on your mind” in Facebook lingo). If his status is posted using a mobile device (evident by the associated mobile phone icon) and reads, “taking my kid to the zoo,” then Fred’s lack of response quickly makes sense. He’s otherwise occupied.

Translating that to a business scenario, workers have become highly mobile, and thus have a greater chance of missing a communication, whether it’s a phone call, email or IM. Being able to first check a colleague’s Mobile Presence from a smartphone, before initiating any communication, is the best way to increase the probability of connecting on the first try.

Individuals within companies that use DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (deskphone number, social networking, voice and IM) have come to rely on the practice of checking Presence before placing a call, or sending email or IM. You never know where your colleagues are at a given moment, or if they are available for communication at all. Checking Presence first avoids wasting time calling and getting voicemail, or waiting indefinitely for an email or IM response.

For example, let’s say Fred (who is also a co-worker) is using DiVitas Mobile UC and his Presence icon shows he is “available by text only” and his Status message reads “in a meeting until 2pm.” Instead of having my call go directly to visual voicemail and waiting until 2pm for a voice response, I would send a brief IM (using mobile Instant Messaging) that he can discreetly read, and respond to, from his DiVitas smartphone without interrupting the meeting. It doesn’t matter where either of you is located, because the communication is entirely by smartphone.

When you stop to consider that Mobile Facebook users (consumers) are the same people who use Mobile UC (business users), a 3-fold increase in usage demonstrates a clear need for Mobile Presence and improved enterprise mobility. People in your inner circle, whether it’s business contacts or personal friends, have a need to know your availability and the best way to contact you.  And Enterprise Social Networking's Mobile Presence capability provides this benefit toward affordably creating a highly mobile workforce.

Being able to check my colleagues’ Mobile Presence and status message before contacting them is as habit-forming as checking online traffic conditions before getting in my car. Just as I would avoid highway 880 when the Sig Alert website shows congestion, I would choose IM (mobile Instant Messaging) over voice when my colleagues are unavailable for calls.

The common denominator in each of these scenarios – checking traffic online and checking my colleagues’ availability – is that knowledge of a situation breeds efficiency. In fact, I have grown so accustomed to tools that provide that critical prior knowledge, it feels like I can’t be a productive human being without them.

For example, let’s say I need to contact Vivek, my CEO. One glance at my Nokia screen and I’ll know if he’s available, how he’s available, where he is, what he’s doing, etc. While that level of knowledge may sound Big Brotheresque, sharing these details means we colleagues can connect with one another on the first try.

• Looking at Vivek’s Mobile Presence, I see from the smiley face icon that he is available by voice or text, so I can either call or IM him. (I choose IM because I simply need to tell him that our 3pm meeting has been cancelled.)
   
• Reading his Status message, I see that he’s at the airport and catching a 5pm flight to New York – in other words I have a specific window of time when I can reach him before he is incommunicado for several hours. (Hence I know not to reschedule our 3pm meeting for today.)

From a business perspective, I save myself the time and effort of roaming the building looking for people. If I’m offsite, I save my company the expense of wasted cell minutes on missed calls and help reduce cellular costs (and hence overall reduce telecom costs). I am more productive and the cost of supporting my business communications needs has become minimal due to these mobile VoIP capabilities.

Knowledge at a glance is a powerful thing because it helps me make informed decisions throughout the day. After finishing this blog I have to call my doctor’s office to make an appointment. If only I could view the appointment desk’s Presence ahead of time so that I’d know if it’s a good time to call to avoid waiting on hold.

DiVitas and Samsung announced this week that DiVitas Mobile UC, including key Enterprise Social Networking apps (Voice combined with Mobile Presence, Status message and mobile Instant Messaging (IM)), will be tightly integrated with Samsung’s Windows Mobile smartphones. Both GSM and CDMA Windows Mobile devices will now support DiVitas Mobile UC.

The companies worked closely together to enhance the APIs in the Samsung Mobile Innovator’s SDK, allowing a Mobile UC solution for the first time to take advantage of the Social Networking capabilities offered by the Windows Mobile operating system.

Enterprise Social Networking included in DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) is a secure alternative to popular consumer Social Networking apps, such as Twitter or Facebook, for the workplace in order to improve enterprise mobility. Organizations deploying Mobile UC enjoy the benefit of business voice (deskphone) that is combined with Social Networking (Presence, IM and Status message) and placed onto a smartphone. But by limiting access to a specific group of people (colleagues within your organization), Mobile UC lets organizations take advantage of the real-time communication benefits of Social Networking without compromising security. With Enterprise Social Networking, the risk of accidentally leaking sensitive information to the masses is eliminated.

This week’s announcement represents a major breakthrough for organizations waiting to deploy Mobile UC on a Windows Mobile smartphone. This is especially true for enterprises that have standardized on CDMA, the network which represents the lion’s share of U.S. cellular lines.

The supported Samsung Windows Mobile devices include the Epix, Saga, Jack and the Omnia (CDMA) in the U.S. and the Omnia (GSM) globally.

Related news articles:

Among the press and media outlets covering the Samsung/DiVitas WinMo partnership was NetworkWorld blogger and analyst Craig Mathias. In his Aug. 18 column covering the announcement “by Mobile Unified Communications (MUC) leader DiVitas” he sums up his analysis saying:  

“Bottom line, though - this is likely to be a very significant announcement for all concerned  … Mobile converged/unified communications will be a key driver of handset sales and corporate mobility strategies alike for a nice long stretch into the future.”

Also following the Samsung/DiVitas news was VoIP Planet. In his article DiVitas, Samsung Partner for Mobile UC, VoIP Planet’s Adam Stone quotes DiVitas CEO Vivek Khuller as saying:

"'The target market in my mind is the information worker—the knowledge worker, who is on the road, even if that is within their own buildings. It’s someone who is not tethered to their desk,' Khuller said. He estimates most workers can be found at their desks less than 30 percent of the time these days. Put the full phone system in their pockets, and productivity is bound to increase.”


Other coverage of the DiVitas/Samsung announcement includes:
 

• TMCnet European Editor Bob Emmerson’s article Windows Mobile Gets UC Boost.
  
   
• Analyst Peter Brockmann writes Samsung Boosts Mobile UC with Win Mobile SDK Update.

Given my recent blog about being a Twitter Quitter, it’s easy for me to understand why certain organizations – the NFL, ESPN and the Marine Corps to name a few – have suddenly soured on consumer Social Networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace.

To name a few recent Social Networking-banning events:

• Wired reports, “The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks, effective immediately.”
   
• The New York Times reports, “The N.F.L. has identified the enemy and it is Twitter.”
   
• The New York Times also reports that ESPN is limiting Social Networking after issuing a list of “12 guidelines to its employees about social networking.”

The ticklish issue common to each of these organizations is a matter of information containment: Blasting out your Status worldwide is one thing. But when that status message reveals competitive secrets – or threatens national security – the fun and games are over.

Or so says the hyper-sensitive Marine Corps about the Social Networking trend: “The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel... at an elevated risk of compromise."

But not all Social Networking tools are created equal.

While Twitter and Facebook are ideal for consumer use (and hence information security breaches), Enterprise Social Networking included in DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) is appropriate – and secure -- for the workplace. Organizations deploying DiVitas enjoy the benefit of business voice (deskphone) combined with IM (mobile Instant Messaging) and Social Networking (Mobile Presence and Status message) and placed onto a smartphone – without sacrificing information security.

By limiting access to a specific, and secure, group of people (colleagues within your organization), mobile Enterprise 2.0 leverages Mobile Unified Communications to lets organizations take advantage of the real-time communication benefits provided by social networking without the risk of accidentally leaking sensitive information to the masses. 

In short the enterprise defines the walls of the social networking community.   

Translation: If the troops were to use DiVitas Enterprise Social Networking instead of Twitter or Facebook for secure collaboration, the Marine Corps could set aside fears of security breaches. Same goes with the NFL and ESPN – those Status blasts would only be shared with colleagues within the organization.  At the same time, individuals in the organization are able to take advantage of the secure collaboration and sharing offered by social media.

Addressing the need for Enterprise 2.0, Mobile UC:

• Uses Mobile Presence to broadcast your status to your entire network. One glance at the directory displayed on your phone and you can see who is available (by voice and/or text) or unavailable at any given moment.
   
• Has a customizable Status message to broadcast exactly what you are doing at a given moment – a must-have when you need to know if a colleague is reachable. Personal Status messages such as “in a foxhole”, or, “about to take an ice bath for my knee injury” speak volumes when you need to let colleagues know your whereabouts.
   
• Enables mobile Instant Messaging (IM) so that colleagues can discreetly send each other brief text messages when a voice conversation isn’t appropriate, convenient or necessary.

The Marine Corps, ESPN and the NFL are just a few samples of the many organizations finding themselves squeezed between end user desire to share information, and the business need to contain the unfettered spread of that information.

In fact, Researcher Frost & Sullivan recently looked into the relationship between Social Networking and enterprises. And their report 2009 Corporate Use of Social Networking, which addressed applications such as Facebook and Twitter, highlights the need for Enterprise Social Networking.

• The vast majority (80%) of survey respondents report that they personally use Web 2.0 technologies to connect and share with friends and family while at work.
   
• More than half of all respondents (54%) reported that they use Web 2.0 technologies for professional purposes such as connecting with colleagues, generating leads and collaborating on projects.

The bottom line is any organization – sports, military, news outlets, businesses, etc. – can enjoy the collaborative benefits of Enterprise Social Networking, without sacrificing security. They simply need to ignore consumer tools such as Twitter and Facebook, and instead rely on the Enterprise 2.0 capabilities of Mobile UC to contain the flow of Status info.

I’m a Twitter Quitter, but a big fan of Enterprise Social Networking.

Siliconindia’s July 2009 issue focuses on the “emerging enterprise wireless” space, and includes an article contributed by DiVitas on this topic.

In this article we describe the ongoing trend among universities to use Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC), a mobile social networking solution (Mobile Presence and Status) that integrates voice and mobile Instant Messaging (IM), to tighten the campus community. Mobile UC runs on any web-enabled smartphone i.e. iPhone, Blackberry and Android to mak faculty, staff and students more accessible to one another, leading to a deeper level of collaboration.

Following is an excerpt from Silconindia’s Universities Deploying Mobile Unified Communications to Keep Campus Connected:

“…In bygone days, students relied on dorm phones and university-supplied email addresses to contact one another. Today, however, students are primarily reachable by using a hodgepodge of private, unpublished cell phone numbers and email addresses. They also blast their whereabouts, and read about what their fellow campus dwellers are doing, using one of the many social networking applications like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

Given this variety of communication mediums, it can be difficult to find contact information for a fellow student in, say, your math class. Individual, private contact information simply isn’t managed and published by universities. And this lack of a standard platform for phone and or text-based communication has contributed to undermine the social structure at a university, which by nature is a collaborative environment.

Secure social networking running on iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices (via Mobile UC) is changing all this. It is helping universities overcome the digital divide to recreate a sense of campus community.”

Read more about how the DiVitas's Mobile UC running on a iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices supports a full range of communications by combining mobile social networking applications (Mobile Presence and Status) with IM, voice and a university phone number, university directory contacts and Visual Voicemail.

If there’s one thing that every smartphone user has in common, it’s a dead or dying battery. There is no avoiding it – a huge battery-life penalty is paid for the privilege of using mobile email, being eternally connected to the Internet, watching' videos and playing with the vast assortment of downloadable apps. Charging, or at least monitoring, your battery is part of daily life for any smartphone user.

Knowing this, my ears perked up when I read this insightful ComputerWorld article about battery-life conservation. The most valuable tip was not, however, about dimming the screen or turning off the battery-sucking Bluetooth earpiece. That’s old news. What was refreshing was to read how the way you use your smartphone to communicate plays a key role in battery life usage. And to that end, the author notes that using alternatives to email for mobile communication will have a major positive impact on battery life.

According to tip #4 of Smartphone battery life: 20 ways to juice it up:
Good tip but I’d like to take this suggestion one step further. In practice I conserve hours of battery life on a daily basis by always using the Instant Messaging (IM) function on my DiVitas phone for quick communication. Rather than emailing or calling my colleague with news of a delayed meeting, for example, I simply send an IM such as “staff meeting pushed to 3:15.” Better yet, I can type that same message as my microblog (Status Update Message), broadcasting it to my entire product team simultaneously.

The bottom line is that battery-draining email should be the last resort for folks who want to minimize the time they spend connected to an electrical socket and phone charger. Voice is a better choice for battery conservation. But the best choice of all in terms of battery life as well as expense and efficiency is DiVitas IM or Microblog. Just key in a few short words, your message has been communicated.

By Jenni Adair

Being able to check my phone to see another person’s Mobile Presence and Status message (part of Enterprise Social Networking) has become such a habit that I get kind of annoyed when I can’t.

See, my work phone, a Nokia E71 running DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC), displays Mobile Presence and Status information, which means I can tell what my colleagues are doing at any given moment. And when you stop to consider that a large percentage of your waking hours are spent doing your job, you can see how habit-forming checking Presence can be.

Here’s what happens. I periodically scroll through the contact list on my DiVitas phone to see who’s doing what – even if I don’t necessarily need to talk to that person (and even if it’s the weekend and I’m not technically working. That’s the definition of a habit, right?). At the moment, for example, it’s 2:13 p.m. on a Tuesday and I can see that Amanda is busy writing (according to her microblog Status message) and not available to take my call (according to her Mobile Presence icon). Nancy is in a meeting – also not taking calls, but she’s available to chat by IM (mobile Instant Messaging). And Vivek is grabbing a coffee and free to talk or chat via IM. This information translates to:  

• Don’t waste my time or cell minutes calling Amanda right now because she won’t answer.
   
• Don’t waste my time or cell minutes calling Nancy either, but send her a brief IM letting her know she can take her time in her meeting because our 2pm has cancelled.
   
• I can call Vivek or send him an IM – or even walk down the street and join him – because it’s one of those rare moments when he’s not busy.

From a business perspective, I save myself the time and effort of roaming the building looking for people. I am part of a highly mobile workforce and this on-the-go status defines my day. If I’m offsite, I save my company the expense of wasted cell minutes because I reduce missed calls and hence reduce cellular costs. I am more productive and the cost of supporting my business communications needs has become minimal. By using these Enterprise 2.0 capabilities I have contributed to more affordable telecommunications.

From a personal perspective, I can’t wait for the day when my cell company offers a service like this on my personal phone. I have grown so accustomed to Presence and Status Messages that I want it in my everyday life. 

Anybody second guessing the benefits of telecommuting is in for some enlightenment. Networking giant Cisco – and the $10 million annual savings it’s enjoying by letting employees work from home – is proof that telecommuting works as advertised. It helps reduce mobile telecom costs.

According to a recent NetworkWorld article, Cisco Sends Employees Home to Work, the networking giant has already realized productivity savings of $277 million thanks to its 18-month-old telework program. The company based its productivity savings on the “number of billed hours at an average of $91 per hour.” 

Ironically, the original intent behind Cisco’ Telework program – a program requested by CEO John Chambers and which began with 20,000 employees – was to “… evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts associated with telecommuting …”, according to NetworkWorld. The actual cost savings, says Cisco, are a bonus.

While Cisco’s productivity savings are significant, just imagine if you were to add DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC), which runs seamlessly in a Cisco environment, to the telecommuting equation. You would begin to see hard cost savings from reduced cellular costs as well.

For example, because a DiVitas smartphone behaves just like a deskphone (carries the corporate phone number and performs call forward, extension dialing, etc.), telecommuters would be reachable by a single device – a mobile phone that runs over WiFi, which would result in several telecom cost reducing benefits:

• Free WiFi phone calls - callers benefit from free international calls on WiFi and local calls on WiFi.
• Only one device (a smartphone) needs to be purchased and managed for each telecommuter.
• Companies can discontinue subsidizing home-phone service for telecommuters.
• Costly cellular data plans are only necessary for highly mobile telecommuters i.e. sales; telecommuters working strictly from a home office can place and receive voice calls strictly via WiFi.

In addition to traditional desktop collaboration tools used for enabling telecommuting programs, DiVitas offers specific Mobile UC-related benefits:  
 

• Single Number reach and Caller ID on the DiVitas handset shows the company direct dial number – nobody knows that the individual is working from home.
• Has integrated mobile social networking capabilities such as Mobile Presence and mobile Instant Messaging (IM) and Status message.
• Is integrated with the corporate directory, so placing a call or addressing an email or IM can be done directly from the smartphone interface.
• Supports Dual Persona, which allows personal calls to be routed through a native cellular number (Personal Persona) and business calls to be routed through a mobile phone (Business Persona ); highly mobile telecommuters need only carry one device.
• Supports Fixed Mobile Convergence (seamless roaming), allowing phones calls to hand off seamlessly between WiFi and cellular.
• Has landline-like voice quality over WiFi.
• Is under IT control and supports remote over the air (OTA) installation, configuration and update management.
• Supports Visual Voicemail and Single Voicemail Inbox, allowing individuals to retrieve messages directly from their smartphones and eyeball which messages have priority status.

Cisco’s telecommuting results are very promising in the argument for companies instituting telecommuting policies.

According to NetworkWorld, “91% of the nearly 2,000 respondents to a late 2008 survey [of Cisco] believed the ability to telecommute is “somewhat or very important” to their overall satisfaction on the job.”

Also, “69% of employees surveyed cited higher productivity when working from home and 75% said the timeliness of their work improved.”

Like Cisco, we at DiVitas practice what we preach – we use our own solution to the point that our company can share the news about productivity and cost-savings benefits.

Because we at DiVitas eat our own dog food, we have a real-world perspective on how handy Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) can be.

Just the other day, for example, I was running a few minutes late for a web meeting … which could have been a big deal because I was the host! However, it was easy to turn my tardiness into a non-issue thanks to the Enterprise Social Networking (Mobile Presence and Status message) feature of my DiVitas phone.

The DiVitas Status message is customizable, so you can type in a personalized message that simultaneously lets everybody in your network community know what you are doing. This message complements your Mobile Presence, an icon that lets others know if, and how, you are reachable – available by voice, by text, text-and-voice, or unavailable. And your colleagues can see your status, along with the status of everybody on your network, by simply looking at the DiVitas interface on their mobile phone.

For example, let’s say you’re at the airport waiting for a flight. You are available for a phone or IM (mobile Instant Messaging) chat for the next few minutes, and it’s sort of a “now-or-never” situation should anybody need to communicate with you before your phone is switched off. In this case, you would set your Mobile Presence icon to available (a smiley face) and type a brief, informative message into the Status message, such as “waiting to board a 5 hour flight to NY.”

The way I handled the situation with my meeting - an online gathering that included folks in other states and other countries - was similar. I was late because I was caught in traffic, so I pulled over to the side of the road in order to set my Mobile Presence status icon to “available.” I then edited my Status to read “conf login is my email address, pw is crunchy”.

Pithy as this message was, we are so accustomed to using Mobile Presence and the Status message to communicate our whereabouts that it did the job without confusion. The call started on time, I arrived a few minutes later, and we all had a productive meeting. Mission accomplished.

Researcher Frost & Sullivan recently looked into the relationship between Social Networking and enterprises. And their report 2009 Corporate Use of Social Networking, which addressed applications such as Facebook and Twitter, interested me because it highlights the need for Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC).

• The vast majority (80%) of survey respondents report that they personally use Web 2.0 technologies to connect and share with friends and family while at work.
   
• More than half of all respondents (54%) reported that they use Web 2.0 technologies for professional purposes such as connecting with colleagues, generating leads, and collaborating on projects.

These results are not at all surprising to me – Facebook and Twitter are really better suited to the “social” aspect of the social-networking equation. Also not surprising?  “The next level of productivity will occur when enterprises can use these tools to go beyond the social aspect, and harness the unlimited potential of these tools to more effectively manage workflows and drive business," explains Vanessa Alvarez, Industry Analyst with Frost & Sullivan's Unified Communications practice, in the report.

True, true, true. Facebook is really just for fun. And With all of its good intentions, Twitter is too cumbersome for business users. Followers must scroll through a long list of continually updated tweets (a.k.a. microblogs) to find what they are looking for, which can be extremely time consuming, especially if you are trying to separate business-related tweets from personal.

However, there is a way to gear Social Networking tools to the enterprise, such that this technology will make people more efficient at their jobs – especially when you add a mobile element to the equation.

DiVitas Mobile UC takes the social networking concept and ties it together with the PBX (business numbers and deskphone functions), the wireless LAN and smartphones to create a single, mobile interface that:

• Uses Presence to broadcast your status to your entire network. One glance at the directory displayed on my phone and I can see who is available (by voice and/or text) or unavailable at any given moment.
   
• Has a customizable microblog to broadcast what exactly you are doing at a given moment – a must-have when you need to know if a colleague is reachable. Microblogs such as “in a meeting”, “about to catch a 5 hour flight to NY” or “at the dentist, in the office at 10” speak volumes when you need information from a colleague.
   
• Enables Instant Messaging (IM) so that colleagues can discreetly send each other brief text messages when a voice conversation isn’t appropriate, convenient or necessary.
   
• Makes the smartphone act as a mobile deskphone, which means you can simply dial a four-digit extension number – or click on a directory contact from the phone’s interface – to reach a colleague.

The popularity of applications like Twitter and Facebook have certainly done a lot to raise awareness about social networking, but they fall short of addressing the needs of business folks. It’s when you take the usefulness of Presence, IM and Status Update Messages, and integrate them with the PBX and mobile devices, that you get a package that makes people more effective at their jobs.

I read a GigaOM blog earlier this week where the writer was advertising the industry need for a mobile device that will help balance today’s all-too-common 24x7 lifestyle. It was a well-written blog, but I couldn’t help but get a good chuckle out of it. DiVitas addresses every wish on his list – sort of a fairy tale ending to a “Someday My Prince Will Come” themed blog.

According to this blog titled Wanted: One Mobile Device, for a 24/7 Life, the search is on for “a smart device to support my diverse lifestyle, one that doesn’t compromise either my IT department’s sleep schedule or — more importantly — the integrity of my personal data.”

The writer, Balaji Natarajan and senior IT strategist for Capgemini, goes on to suggest a “targeted re-engineering of mobile devices and device management technologies” as the answer to his problem.

This seems a little like taking a wrecking ball to kill a spider (and hence the chuckle when I read it). The industry doesn’t need a bunch of new hardware re-engineering. It simply needs a solution like DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC)– which is here today and leverages existing smartphone technology.

DiVitas runs on smartphones, such as the $99 Nokia E71x, and addresses all of these work/life balance issues. And it does this on a single device and without causing IT headaches. DiVitas also has a plethora of other advantages such as saving money (WiFi calls don’t count against the carrier plan and are free of charge), it fully migrates a deskphone number along with its capabilities to a mobile device and it uniquely supports integrated Unified Communications.

DiVitas Mobile UC:

• Supports Dual Persona, which allows personal calls to be routed through a native cellular number (Personal Persona) and business calls to be routed through the DiVitas client (Business Persona).
• Mobilizes the deskphone number, which enables single number reach.
• Is under IT control and supports remote over the air (OTA) installation, configuration and update management.
• Has integrated Mobile Social Networking capabilities, letting you use UC apps such as corporate Mobile Presence and mobile Instant Messaging (IM) directly from your smartphone.
• Supports Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), allowing mobile phones to perform seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular.
• Supports WiFi calling, which means mobile calls have landline-like voice quality. No choppy cell phone calls when you are in WiFi range.
• Enables free WiFi calls, enabling quick mobile convergence ROI.
• Makes mobile phone behaves just like a deskphone (same number, call forward, extension dialing, etc.)
• Supports Visual Voicemail and Unified Messaging, allowing users to retrieve corporate messages directly from their smartphones and eyeball which messages have priority status.

While Natarajan is correct when he refers to the mobile workforce in his blog. “... as our work and personal lives become increasingly harder to separate, we will become increasingly unwilling to tote around more than one mobile device.

However, I couldn’t disagree more with his statement, “one truly mobile device for a 24/7 life will remain out of our reach.” Mr. Natarajan, that solution is here today and it is offered by DiVitas Enterprise Social Networking.

Twitter has caught the attention of businesses because busy people understand the time-saving merits of keeping colleagues apprised of what you are doing and possibly where you are.

But with all of its good intentions, Twitter is too cumbersome for business users. Followers must scroll through a long list of continually updated tweets (a.k.a. micro-blogs) to find what they are looking for, which can be time consuming at best. I find rummaging through tweets to be so tedious that I gave up Twitter about a week into using it (at least I can say I gave it the ole college try!)

There is certainly value in providing colleagues with an update on your status. But how you present the information is critical to its usefulness. And when it comes to Presence and Status Update messages, my DiVitas phone meets all of my needs. With DiVitas, Presence and Status is available on a “when I need to know” basis. Meaning, if I want to know somebody’s status, I simply look up that person in my network contacts. New updates to Status messages override previous updates, so there is no confusion over which status-post is most current.

DiVitas is very simple and clean, unlike Twitter, which continually pushes out updated Status Messages in a linear, list format. Using my DiVitas phone, I can scroll through my network contacts and eyeball the icon next to each name to see who is available, unavailable, on the phone, etc. At the same time, I can read each contact’s Status Update message, which appears next to their name. This tells me where they are or what they are doing. For example, if there is a smiley face next to Rich Watson’s name, I know he’s available by voice or text. And if his status message reads “working from home”, I know that I should call or IM rather than waste time walking to his office for an in-person chat.

DiVitas’ Presence and Status Message format is much closer to Microsoft’s, Yahoo!’s or Skype’s Instant Messaging (IM) applications that have become popular over the years for their productivity benefits. With Yahoo! for example, I can look at my buddy list and see who’s online (similar to DiVitas, a Yahoo! smiley face indicates “available”). And I can read my Yahoo! buddy’s Status Update message to find out any further info I need to know. My DiVitas phone provides the same type of information at a glance, in the same format that I’m already accustomed to.

I realize that people like Ashton Kutcher and Oprah are having fun with Twitter. But for business, I say ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The Presence and Status Update message combo has already proven to be the quickest and least complicated way to make your availability and whereabouts known. And integrating these features with your network contacts, as with DiVitas, is a great way to incorporate the Presence/Status Update package into the workplace.

When defining Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC), it’s the sum of the parts that makes the whole ecosystem. This enterprise-class application is comprised of several components, many of which are offered as individual products by individual vendors.

“Fixed Mobile Convergence” (FMC), for example, is typically offered as a product by vendors who focus on seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular. Similarly, “Unified Communications” is offered by vendors that develop Presence, Instant Messaging, Visual Voicemail and Unified Messaging.

It is only when FMC, UC and the deskphone number + features are combined, and accessible by a single GUI on a smartphone, that a Mobile UC solution results. Mobile Unified Communications is therefore an umbrella term for an enterprise-class application, which is comprised of several individual technologies: Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), Unified Communications (UC), smartphones, PBXs, WLANs and the carrier’s cellular network.

• FMC unifies fixed-line and wireless (WiFi and cellular) voice on a smartphone, which enables seamless, uninterrupted roaming between WiFi and cellular networks. FMC is only a single component of the Mobile UC umbrella set of technologies – as a standalone technology, it is not considered to be the equivalent of Mobile UC.
   
• UC is a set of integrated applications intended to unify, and therefore simplify, communication thereby increasing productivity in the workplace. Voice, Presence, Instant Messaging, email and voicemail are accessed by a single interface, on a device most convenient to the end user (desktop, deskphone, laptop, smartphone, etc.). As an application set existing without a mobile (FMC) component, it is not considered to be the equivalent of Mobile UC.
   
• Deskphone number and features (extension dialing, call forward, hold, etc.) are features that make a smartphone behave like a deskphone. Extending the deskphone untethers office workers from their desks by offering single-number reach (the phone carries the same number as deskphone), and the availability of deskphone functions means individuals have in-office-like capabilities necessary for efficient business communication, regardless of their location. This capability is required for an existing solution to be considered as part of the Mobile UC category.

The remaining components in the Mobile UC ecosystem – smartphones, WLANs, PBXs and cellular network – comprise the infrastructure over which communication takes place.

While individual Mobile UC components can be developed and marketed in their individual space (i.e. FMC, UC, smartphone, WLAN, PBX, carrier plan), it is only when they are working together in a common ecosystem that they comprise a Mobile Unified Communications solution.

We are doing something in marketing that could be a career limiting move in most high tech companies: We are letting experts loose with smartphones running our Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) software. They are testing out how it feels to use Enterprise Social Networking to become more reachable and productive.

The analyts' phones were hosted by our customer Sawtel, a mobile VoIP carrier in Hartford, CT which has rolled out a hosted Enterprise Social Networking service based on the DiVitas Mobile UC solution.

The experts participating in our testing project are located across the U.S., and they are able to play with the full range of DiVitas features: seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular, deskphone number and features (extension dialing, call forwarding, call waiting, etc.), voice, (mobile Instant Messaging) IM and social networking (Mobile Presence and Status.)

They use their DiVitas phones to first check status of their colleagues, and then place calls or chat straight from the directory of contacts that is accessible directly from the smartphone's interface.

The idea behind our hosting project is to let some experts in the Mobile VoIP (mVoIP) space get a real-life feel for the mobile social networking solution – without having to lay down cold hard cash. The goal is to help them better understand how DiVitas enables enterprise mobility. DiVitas Mobile UC is real (vs. vaporware), it works … and judging by the feedback we’re receiving, it works great. We’ve gotten kudos for the voice quality (powered by the DiVitas Voice Quality Engine), the easy-to-use GUI, the convenience of Visual Voicemail as well as single number reach (smartphone carries same number as the deskphone).

And they now understand – first-hand – how DiVitas really is a mobile extension to the deskphone, but with collaboration and productivity Enterprise 2.0 tools that improve the way mobile workers can do their jobs.

First up are several analysts. We’ll post blogs from all of our testers as they roll in, letting our readers live the DiVitas experience vicariously through them.
 
Testing Divitas' MUC - I Want One (Craig Mathias, Farpoint Group)
DiVitas Test Drive (Michael Stanford)
Voice Quality Rings True (Brent Kelly, Wainhouse Research)
Forrester Gets First Hand DiVitas Experience (Chris Silva, Forrester Research)
Current Analysis Takes DiVitas for a Test Drive (Kathryn Weldon, Peter Jarich, Rob Arnold and Brian Riggs, Current Analysis)
My Mobile FMC Experience (Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group)
Experiencing the Totally Connected Lifestyle (Ted Stevenson, VoIP Planet)

But watch this space for more. We our confident about our secure collaboration software, and want the media to have an opportunity to experience what we here at DiVitas get to experience every day as far as enterprise mobility. Staying continuously connected through single number reach, Mobile Presence, Status Updates and IM increases collaboration, making us more productive.