Reduce Missed Calls

Enterprise Social Networking is an emerging mobile-communications technology that leverages business voice along with Enterprise 2.0 capabilities on a smartphone to connect colleagues on the first try. In making people more reachable, it helps eliminate the time-consuming and costly business problem of continually missing calls and checking/returning voicemail.

We’ve already seen Web 2.0 apps such as Facebook and Twitter help make consumer-based communication more efficient – hundreds of millions of people worldwide update and broadcast Presence and Status messages (i.e. Twitter's “What are you doing”) to one another daily. With Facebook and Twitter, individuals always know what their friends are doing. And now Enterprise 2.0 is upgrading the consumer-based collaboration tools offered by Social Networking and repurposing them for business to let colleagues stay apprised of one another’s Presence and Status, and therefore their availability.

Enterprise Social Networking takes disparate, but familiar, communications components and ties them together to address worker productivity problems. It uses the collaboration and productivity capabilities of Enterprise 2.0 (Presence and Status) and unifies them with communications apps (voice and IM) on a mobile phone. It wraps these capabilities around a deskphone number – the legacy PBX number – which has also been mobilized as business voice onto the same mobile phone. And it ties all of these applications – Social Networking, business voice (deskphone) and IM – to a directory that is easily accessible from the smartphone interface.

Mobile Presence Makes Every Call Count

Being able to first check a colleague’s Presence from a smartphone, before initiating any communication, is the best way to increase the probability of connecting on the first try.

For example, let’s say Joe wants to contact his boss, Mary. He would first check Mary’s Presence icon from his smartphone and note that she is “available by text only.” And he would additionally see that Mary’s Status message says “in a meeting until 2pm.”

Instead of having his call go directly to voicemail and waiting until 2pm for a possible voice response from his Mary, Joe would take the “text-only” cue and send his boss a brief IM (directly from his phone-based contact list). Mary can then discreetly read and respond to Joe’s IM from her smartphone, without interrupting his meeting.

Under this scenario, there are no missed calls; no cell minutes wasted leaving/retrieving/answering voicemail; no interrupted meetings; and the communication between Joe and boss, Mary, is executed in a timely manner.

Here’s what an Enterprise Social Networking-enabled smartphone would look like. It would have:

•    A customizable Status message to broadcast exactly what an individual is doing and if they are reachable. Being able to show a Status message such as “at the airport for 5pm flight to NY” speaks volumes when needing to let authorized colleagues know an individual’s whereabouts.

•    A Presence icon to broadcast an individual’s availability to their entire community (users strictly within the defined organization). One glance at the smartphone-based directory lets all members of the community see who is available (by voice and/or text) or unavailable at any given moment.

•    IM so that colleagues can discreetly send each other brief text messages – a thrifty alternative to using cell minutes when a voice call is not appropriate, convenient or necessary.

•    Voice – communication by voice is preferred over text in certain situations.

•    Mobilized deskphone - carries the corporate phone number (and caller ID) and enables corporate PBX features (extension-dialing, call transfer, hold, etc.)


Using Enterprise Social Networking, organizations can create a secure, controlled community where users make informed decisions before connecting. This results in fewer missed calls, lower mobile expenses and greatly improved productivity.  

A BYO (bring your own) phone strategy is a win-win for companies and their employees. By letting people use their personal smartphones at work instead of corporate-owned devices, companies save thousands of dollars on overhead (device purchases) while letting individuals enjoy their mobile handset of choice.

The reason why this works is simple: Because we all use mobile phones so heavily in our every day lives, handsets (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Nokia, Samsung, etc.) have become a very personal choice – more personal than any other business device in history. As a result, “prosumer” mobile phone users have gained an unusually strong voice in certain hardware choices. And they have been overwhelmingly voting with their dollars – for example, last quarter Apple sold its highest volume of iPhone sales.

Combined with web-based apps such as DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC), a BYO strategy makes for an affordable and secure approach to arming the workforce with devices that are business by day and personal by night. Enterprise Social Networking capabilities that keep them in contact with business colleagues are available from a single phone to become part of the mobile workforce.

“Over time, an increasing number of companies have shifted desktop applications targeting HR, sales, governance, and data entry back to Web-based centralized services that don't require a client…” according to analyst Rob Enderle in his article, Bring-Your-Own-PC an Option for Cash-Strapped Enterprises.

Adding to that, Enderle writes, “Employees, particularly executives and younger employees, when they needed a new PC simply bought one (generally a laptop). They used existing polices that provided for system access from a home PC to enable them for work. For those working from home, many have used their own PCs for years.

In addition, with the massive number of layoffs people have increasingly had to buy their own PCs while looking for a job — and when rehired, appear willing to go on using it for business.  Web applications make this possible because IT does not have to load client applications on the individual’s laptop.  

The cost savings is about $300 per employee per month that flows right to the bottom line at a time when profits are elusive for many companies. You can understand why neither the IT organization nor the line organizations that would have to fund a replacement program are eager to fix this.”

There are nothing but parallels between the BYO phone and PC stories. Companies save money by relying on employee-owned devices, and they maintain security and continuity by providing access to web-based clients (i.e. secure collaboration software). Employees get to use their device of choice – most often smartphones such as iPhone – which allows continuity in their communication and ensures they are connected to their colleagues when they are mobile. They reduce miss calls, which increases productivity and further improves the company's bottom line.

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.

Want to know how to affordably mobilize your workforce? Implement a BYO phone (bring your own phone) policy in which an employee’s personal smartphone doubles as their business phone. This works for iPhone, Blackberry, Android or any other web-enabled mobile devices.

Let's face it. Popular devices such as iPhone are quickly making their way into the workplace. And a BYO enterprise mobility strategy saves money on overhead (no need to buy additional smartphone hardware for non-mobilized workers.) It also makes your employees happy – and hence more productive – to be using their favorite phone by day (work) and night (pleasure) rather than juggle two sets of phone instructions.

In keeping with this strategy, I read an interesting FierceWireless blog posted by IDC analyst Stephen Drake about what companies can do to best take advantage of this “individual-liable” trend in enterprise mobility.
 
[Note: Drake defines "Individual-Liable" devices as either: 1) Purchased by the user and expensed back, but not reimbursed formally by a company-established policy, or 2) Purchased outright by the individual user, brought into the workplace, and used for either corporate or standalone business applications.]

Says Drake in his article How businesses can embrace individual-liable smartphones, “With the smartphone market expected to outshine the overall mobile phone market for the foreseeable future, the growing influence of new devices and platforms, including Apple, RIM [Blackberry], Android, Palm, etc. … the critical nature of the individual-liable business device is evident.”

In fact, IDC’s Drake predicts the individual-liable business-use mobile phone will experience more growth than corporate-liable devices. Also, the researcher says it’s seeing a trend in which large companies begin to move towards the individual-liable business use device model.

The benefit, he says, is “a slowdown on costs and provides better choice, user control and delivers an image that IT is being progressive in enabling such choice to its worker base.”

“Add that to the growing number of smartphones coming on the market. Certainly the strong popularity of the iPhone, continued consumer push from RIM and  the large Windows Mobile OEM base drives much of the individual-liable business use in the U.S. In addition, devices such as the Palm Pre, Nokia's E Series (in particular the E71) and the new Android tide rolling in all speak to the importance of this individual-liable business use case.”

In his blog, Drake lays out a list of advice-points to be heeded by any company following the BYO phone strategy for enterprise mobility.

As for DiVitas, we recommend pairing the BYO phone strategy with Mobile Unified Communications Mobile UC) web client, which is under IT control and which enables the smartphone to carry the deskphone number. At the same time the device and business number tie in with voice, IM and social networking (Mobile Presence and Status) to help employees connect on the first try – and eliminate missed calls to further reduce cellular costs.

With DiVitas’ secure Web client running on an individual-liable iPhones, Blackberrys and Androids:

• There is nothing to download, upgrade or delete (app is accessed strictly via smartphone’s web browser.)
   
• The web client can be accessed by any device (handsets or desktops.)
   
• Companies still subsidize individual cellular costs, but they eliminate hardware overhead (additional device-purchase costs) in mobilizing the entire workforce, including traditionally unmobilized corridor warriors.
   
• Individual-liable devices are as secure as deskphones and corporate-liable phones because the Mobile UC is web-based and under IT control.
   
• Individuals have access to Enterprise Social Networking capabilities to make individuals aware of one another's reachability.

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.

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.

My 11 year-old-nephew Tommy asked me an interesting question last night: “What does DiVitas do?”

I had to ponder a moment about how to answer this question about enterprise mobility. Keep in mind that although Tommy has an email account, he never uses it claiming that “I’m not an email kinda guy.” Nor does he use Facebook, Myspace or Twitter (although I later realized he has vague knowledge of how those consumer Social Networking apps work based on what he reads and hears.)

As it turns out, it took about three seconds to explain how Enterprise Social Networking works to him – far less time than I spent pondering what to say and how much base knowledge I was working with.

Here’s how I did it: I turned on my phone and updated my mobile Presence icon to show "available" and typed in my Status message to read, “showing my nephew how DiVitas works”. Then I scrolled through my contact list, explaining to Tommy that my Presence and Status can be seen by all of these folks on my list – and likewise we are able to see all of their Presence and Status.

Apparently this was very easy to grasp.

His first question: “So this is kind of like Twitter?”

Me (a bit stunned by the connection): “Yes. I can edit my Status message (“What are you doing” in Twitter lingo”) to tell others what I’m up to.

Second question: “So everybody on that list can see what you are doing, but nobody else because it’s private?”

Me (again surprised by his astuteness): “Yes. This list is restricted to people at DiVitas.”

He continued down his quizzical path, asking what kind of companies would use this and specifically asked if, for example, Walmart would use it.

Me (interested by where he is going with the questions): “Yes” and I went on to explain how a boss could look at his phone to see what Joe-employee is doing in order to know if he’s available for a particular task. But if Joe’s Status message reads “cleaning up spilled milk on aisle 3,” I explained, the boss knows that Joe will be busy for awhile and he should find somebody else for the task at hand.

Excited by an idea of how he could use DiVitas Enterprise Social Networking, enabled by Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC), Tommy then went on to apply what he learned to a scenario that he is familiar with. And that is Rollercoaster Tycoon – a computer game in which you can build an amusement park.

One of the tasks with Rollercoaster Tycoon is that you have to manage/maintain the park and so when, Tommy explained, if somebody gets sick by a ride, you have to find an employee to go attend to it (he was actually a bit more graphic in his explanation but I will spare you the gory details). This type of clean-up task is apparently a very big deal in this game because it is every kid’s goal to create the most stomach-turning rollercoaster possible. Hence streamlining the cleanup/delegation process is a key productivity element.

The important point here is that Tommy was able to connect the dots and apply DiVitas secure collaboration software benefits to a business process (of sorts) that is relevant to him.  Tommy said that our Mobile Presence and Status would be excellent for amusement-park management. The park manager, he explained, would have the mobile phone with him at all times, so he could simply look at his mobile phone instead of having to go back to his office and monitor everything from his computer.

He could also use a GPS locator and an automated program to locate and contact the employee who is nearest to the job location, and who is available to do the task. This is key benefit to enterprise social networking on a DiVitas mobile phone - you are able to assign tasks and simultaneously benefit from the ability to reduce missed calls.

Here is what struck a cord with me:

• I mentally struggled with explaining DiVitas’ Enterprise Social Networking solution because I assumed Tommy, being 11 and unfamiliar with Facebook, wouldn’t get it. Completely untrue. But after a brief explanation and seeing a demo, he understood Enterprise Social Networking in a split second.
  
   
• Tommy is in sixth grade, and while he’s a smart kid, it’s not like he’s a child prodigy skipping high school and heading straight to university. So if your basic 11-year-old can get what we do in five seconds or less, I feel confident that an adult purchasing-decision maker in an IT department can too. You may not work in an amusement park but if you are anything like me, your job often takes on the feel of riding a rollercoaster. But having my DiVitas smartphone, I am connected to my collegues at all times, making that ride less frequent than it otherwise would be.

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.

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. 

Known for their love of the iPhone, universities have begun rolling out mobile applications to give students on-the-go access to campus information such as current and next-quarter course listings, interactive campus maps and homework alerts. The next wave in this iPhone/university love fest is to unify the now-fragmented communication among students and faculty using secure collaboration software.

Gone are the days of the traditional student directory with its tidy, reliable list of university-supplied phone numbers and email addresses. Instead, students today are reachable by using a hodgepodge of private cell phones and email addresses. Or they blast their whereabouts, and read about their fellow campus dwellers, using one of many social networking applications (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.).

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 published by universities.

The Enterprsie Social Networking capabilities of Mobile UC (Mobile Unified Communications) running on the iPhone is changing all this. It is helping universities overcome the digital divide to recreate a sense of campus community.
 
By deploying mobile Enterprise 2.0 (Mobile Presence and Status) on an iPhone, campus dwellers are reachable by a single phone number (a university number), by a single email address (university email) and on a single device that they are familiar with (iPhone). What does this mean? Students can call, email or IM each other by using contact information they find in the student directory – and which is accessible directly from their iPhone. And they are using a university phone to communicate – just like they did back in the day.  

Adding to this communications story, campus members can also use Mobile UC on their iPhone to broadcast their Mobile Presence and Status message (available by voice and/or text, or unavailable). Or they can customize their Mobile Presence and Status by editing their Status message to state what they are doing and where they are doing it (i.e. studying at the library 4th floor).

By making this information available, it transforms communication and reachability into real-time, and it eliminates expensive telephone tag – no more wasted minutes on missed calls, which results in reduced cellular costs.

With Enterprise Social Networking, students can also be notified via iPhone of any changes in class schedules, campus events, or campus emergencies because that info is pushed out to students via Status Update Message, or a custom-built bulletin board application.

The iPhone has become known for many wonderful features. The spotlight is now on its ability to be a key secure collaboration software platform for enhancing the university experience.

Over time I had grown accustom, maybe even entitled, to the incredible amount of battery life I got with my cell phone. Over the past few decades, the carriers have been working closely with the handset providers to optimize battery life. So much so that today most people take for granted the fact that standby times are so generous. We’re talking about standby battery lives of weeks, not days! Worst-case scenario, we are also talking about 3 to 7 hours of talk time on a basic cell phone. Wow! This means you may only have to charge the battery every day or so, depending on the number of phone calls you make or receive.

However, time marches on and so does technology. Today’s multifunction smartphones offer us SO much more than the voice-only cell devices of yesteryear. In addition to being mobilized telephones, smartphones are cameras, GPS locaters, music players, video players and platforms for business applications such as the DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications solution. Some smartphones even have built-in WiFi, giving you access to the Internet free of charge, as long as you’re in range of a WiFi network (home, office, hotspot, etc.).

One Hitch

Nothing in life is free, and this goes for battery-life as well. There is a battery life price to be paid for all of these new bells and whistles. The good news is there is also a solution to this problem that will help you get much improved battery life out of your smartphone.

My point of enlightenment about smartphone battery life, and how to maximize it, came when I charged up my new smartphone and began making use of all the cool features. I drained the phone’s battery in no time. Because of this, I quickly discovered that I had to plan around recharging the battery, or else risk missing calls due to a dead phone.

Devices with multiple radio circuits that allow us to reach out to a networked world – GSM/CDMA, 802.11/WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS – all compete for battery power. Also, the wireless networks themselves conspire against us. 3G WANs place more power demands handsets than 2G or 2.5G networks did. And WiFi is more power hungry than any cellular network, which compounds the power demand problem. And how about this fun fact that most people don’t realize … you know that law about only being able to talk on a cell phone while driving if you’re “hands free”? Bluetooth (hands free) devices are an enormous battery drain.

Maximizing Battery Life

The first thing to do is reset expectations regarding battery life: If you are using your smartphone for more than voice, just getting through an entire workday on one charge is a reasonable goal.  

Here’s a brief battery life optimizing check list that has allowed me to get through a business day on a single charge:

• Do I need all the radios on?
  Do I need GPS? Do I need Bluetooth? Do I need WiFi? Disabling RF circuits that are not essential goes a long way toward optimizing battery life. (Note: Also be aware that in a weak cellular coverage area, the cellular radio will work harder to find a good signal and burn more of that precious battery power.)
   
• Consider turning off the back light
  You don’t need this if the phone is held to your ear and you aren’t looking at the screen.

• Turn off the vibrate feature
  Let the ringer do its job. The vibrator can be a big drain on the battery.
   
• Set mobile email for periodic refresh instead of the real-time update
  
  
• Disable the WiFi “scanning’ function
  Once WiFi profiles are defined, power hungry WiFi search can be disabled.

• Minimize use of the camera/flash
  These peripherals have a direct bearing on observed battery life.

• Minimize video watching
  Youtube and other online video applications are energy intensive.

You can reasonably expect that with 2+ hours of conversation plus texting, mobile email, Web browsing, Presence updates and application execution, you can get through an 8 to 10 hour business day. While we have yet to reach battery Nirvana with smartphones, it’s possible to optimize your experience with what we have available today. All you need to do is manage your phone usage as well as your expectations.

Mobile Presence is a cornerstone component of Unified Communications (UC). It is also one of several UC features that set Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) apart from Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) solutions. UC and Mobile UC focus on applications, whereas FMC primarily offers seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular networks — no UC capabilities.
 
Mobile Presence has become an important application to businesses today because it helps mobile-colleagues stay apprised of one another’s availability. Using Presence to broadcast and read a Status message (i.e. available by phone, text or currently on the phone), individuals can make more intelligent communication choices and eliminate time wasted making and/or returning missed-calls. Individuals in a highly mobile workforce can connect with one another on the first try.

Whether they are in the office or on the road, Mobile Presence ensures that voice or text-based conversations will be processed in the most efficient manner. And when combined with microblogging (a.k.a. your Status Update message), Presence is elevated to the level of “mobile social networking” that provides the ability to broadcast specifics about an individual.

For example, an individual’s Presence may show “available by text” and his micro-blog Status Update could say “in a customer meeting until 2:00 pm”. Broadcasting Presence and a Status Update message together says it all — how to best reach an individual and a personal message that indicates where they are, what they are doing, and/or how long they will be unavailable.

However, not all approaches to Mobile Presence are created equal — it’s not enough for Presence to simply register a user as online or offline. For Presence to be an effective bi-directional tool — and efficiently inform you about a colleague’s availability to accept a call or read/reply to mobile Instant Messaging (IM) or e-mail — this application requires several capabilities:

• Needs to broadcast ALL scenarios: On voice and text; On voice only; On text only; Not available (a.k.a. Do Not Disturb); or On the Phone. Note: Available/Unavailable is not sufficient; without these additional functions, there is no indication of a missed voice or text message.
  
  
• Needs to be displayed as an icon on the smartphone client GUI.  Note: Without client GUI display, the end user is often forced to manually peruse a PC based contact list.
  
  
• Needs to enable individuals to directly call, email or send mobile Instant Messaging (IM) straight from the smartphone client GUI.  Note: Forcing end users to toggle between smartphone and PC or deskphone to complete communication is inefficient and clumsy.
  
  
• Needs Twitter/Facebook-like option for writing a customized Status Update message (i.e. working at home, in a meeting, at the airport, running late, on a coffee break at Starbucks, etc.) to supplement the presence status state. Note: Pairing a Status Update message that tells “how” you’re available with a mobile Presence icon that broadcasts “if” you’re available means that fewer calls will be missed, less time will be wasted listening to voicemail and returning missed calls, and fewer meetings will be interrupted by a voice call when a simple IM will do the trick.
  
  
• Needs to be federated in order to display entire corporate contact list and individual’s availability. Note: Avoids the manual task of checking each “buddy’s” online/offline status.
  
  
• Needs to combine forces with other UC applications, including mobile Instant Messaging (IM) and Visual Voicemail. Note: Without complementary UC applications, it is nearly impossible achieve the goal of efficiently completing the communication cycle.
  
  
• Needs mobilized business number so the deskphone is moved onto a smartphone and all productivity apps are unified with secure collaboration software features. This enables single number reach in order to make individuals more reachable in ordre to enable companies to reduce missed calls and reduce cellular costs.

At some point in the future, a system’s “Presence” services will be integrated into the enterprise associate PIM (Personal Information Manager), which will enhance the management of the Presence state automatically based on date, time of day, calendar, and email availability.
 
Presence becomes more critical to effective enterprise mobility and mobile communications, the required information richness must go beyond simple “available” or “not available”. This comes into play when the secure, collaborative Enterprise 2.0 capabilites of DiVitas are the underlying platform.

The DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications solution includes a Facebook- and Twitter-like mobile social networking component specifically designed for business folks whose status and availability changes throughout the day.

The DiVitas Enterprise Social Networking interface has the familiar "Mobile Presence and Status" function that people are already accustomed to with Facebook and Twitter, so it's easy to get used to. But while Facebookers and Twitterers are famous for whimsical updates, in the corporate sphere DiVitas is used with a productivity goal: It eliminates wasted time and money playing telephone tag.

And because Mobile Presence and Status updates are displayed on a smartphone (mine is a Nokia E71), there is no need to toggle between your PC and mobile device in order to stay apprised of status changes.

The Status message on DiVitas' secure collaboration software solution tells colleagues what you are doing or where you are: working at home, in a meeting, at the airport, running late, on a coffee break at Starbucks … just to name a few. The message is customizable, so you can type in your specific status as it applies.

The Mobile Presence icon is updated to show available by voice and/or chat or unavailable. Again, DiVitas' mobile social networking tools are familiar to business users because it’s similar to what millions of people around the world are used to with Facebook and Twitter. But with DiVitas your buddies are part of your contacts, so you can call, email or do mobile Instant Messaging (IM) with a friend straight from the smartphone interface.

With DiVitas, you are also armed with the knowledge that you can call a colleague, hold off on that call until you know they are free, or you could discreetly send them an IM with a brief message saying “no need to rush, our 3pm just cancelled.”

Pairing a Status Update message with a mobile Presence icon that broadcasts availability means that fewer calls will be missed, less time will be wasted listening to voicemail and returning missed calls, and fewer meetings will be interrupted by a voice call when a simple IM will do the trick.

When I want to know what my friends are up to, I log onto Facebook. Or I check my Twitter feed. This is where folks in my social sphere broadcast their “status messages” scattershot-style, announcing what they are doing at that particular moment. The things Facebookers and Tweeters say are mostly fun, ranging from titillating to the inane: “on vacation and not checking Gmail”; “just ate a blueberry pancake”; “reading Twilight and feeling like a 17-year-old girl again”; “broke collar bone in bike race” are all messages I have read at one time or another.

The same status-checking process happens every day here at DiVitas. But instead of Facebook or Twitter, we use a “mobile social networking application” specifically designed for business folks who are on the go: DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications. The DiVitas interface has the familiar status update function, but in this sphere we are all co-workers with a common goal of not wasting time playing telephone tag. And it is displayed on my Nokia E71 smartphone, so there is no toggling between my PC and mobile device in order to stay apprised of status changes.

The DiVitas status message tells colleagues what you are doing or where you are: working at home, in a meeting, at the airport, running late, on a coffee break at Starbucks … just to name a few. The message is customizable, so you can type in your specific status as it applies. Again, it’s familiar because it’s similar to what I’m used to with Facebook and Twitter, but in this case my buddies are part of my network contacts, so I can call, email or IM a “Friend” straight from the smartphone GUI. I am also armed with the knowledge that I can call my boss, hold off on that call until I know he’s free, or I could discreetly send him an IM with a brief message saying “no need to rush, our 3pm just cancelled.”

Taking the status update one step further, the DiVitas phone GUI also displays a mobile Presence icon, which indicates whether you are available by voice and/or text -- or unavailable at that moment. Pairing a status message with a Presence icon that broadcasts availability means that fewer calls will be missed, less time will be wasted listening to voicemail and returning missed calls, and fewer meetings will be interrupted by a voice call when a simple mobile Instant Message will do the trick.

I can still be silly with my status message if I choose. (All work and no play will make Nancy a dull girl, right?) In fact, just last week mine read “I am my mom’s mom” (and my Presence meeting showed me as unavailable because I was meeting my elderly mother for our usual Tuesday night dinner). We have the kind of work environment where that kind of thing flies, and it is often a game to see who can be the most creative. Fun aside, that status message/Presence icon has cut the time I waste missing calls, checking email and returning calls down to almost nil.

Earlier this month Avaya made a major announcement, naming DiVitas as its preferred dual-mode solution. This is exciting news for the Mobile Unified Communications space given Avaya’s size (number one in North America’s PBX market) – and given the fact that DiVitas is a startup company in an hot market.

And if that news wasn’t exciting enough, we already have a joint customer to talk about – a leading railroad company based in Jacksonville, Fla. – to demonstrate how the integrated Avaya-DiVitas solution can save companies $10,000+ dollars per month in cellular costs. Free WiFi phone calls go a long way toward reduced cellular costs and creating affordable telecommunications.

Freightrail-giant CSX has turned to Avaya and DiVitas to help reduce cellular calling costs and eliminate multiple handsets used by train operations personnel who roam the workplace and communicate frequently on urgent events.

For more than five years, Dori Meade, senior telecom architect for voice systems at CSX, sought a wireless dual-mode solution to reduce communications costs and eliminate the need for users to carry multiple mobile devices.  One long-standing business need has been to enable rail operations employees at the Jacksonville train dispatch center to be instantly reachable to help resolve urgent problems that might slow on-time arrival or reduce safety margins.  Routine duties in the dispatch center often cause key personnel to be away from their desks.

CSX supported these workers with both desk phone and cell phone, but cell coverage was spotty in the hardened facility.  In the late 1990’s, CSX deployed a carrier-based in-building cellular antenna system to solve the problem. Then five years ago when the in-building cellular system was no longer supported, CSX began to explore the possibility of dual-mode capabilities. At the time, a stable dual-mode solution was not yet available and CSX adopted a 900-Mhz in-building only voice solution instead. Handling multiple devices and contact numbers remained a nuisance for the users.  

From a cost-control perspective, users did not always use the lower-cost 900-Mhz handset and expensive cell minutes were still consumed in-building. Besides adding cost, the multiple systems did not provide a seamless mobile communications experience or the unified communications (UC) functionality that CSX was looking to adopt.  

Last year, a solution meeting Meade’s goals became possible.  As CSX standardized and began to deploy a popular wireless LAN offering, she also learned about the dual-mode telephony capability of DiVitas Networks’ Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) solution. At the same time, upgrades to Avaya Communication Manager were underway, which will eventually support more than 5,000 Jacksonville employees.  

They linked to the DiVitas Mobile UC solution via Avaya’s SIP Enablement Services and the result is that Avaya user extensions are transparently supported on a dual-mode mobile phone.  The Mobile Unified Communications solution gives mobile users the ability to access corporate enterprise voice communications via WiFi on CSX premises with a single device via a single number.  The solution further enables WiFi access from home or potentially from any WiFi hotspot and takes advantage of seamless roaming between WiFi and cellullar to avoid call interruption.

Today users at the dispatch center connect to the system through Nokia dual-mode E-51 and E-71 handsets loaded with the DiVitas Client.  When dispatch managers are on the move, DiVitas automatically makes roaming decisions between WiFi and cellular networks to sustain the call, using the best voice quality and least-cost connection available. Meade identifies a potential rollout to hundreds of campus employees over the next two years as the Avaya Communication Manager upgrades are completed.  

Savings from reduced cellular minutes:  With dual-mode communications, cell plan minutes can be substantially reduced for on-campus mobile workers and even more so for field-workers. CSX calculates it has the potential to reduce cellular calling costs by ten to thirty percent, and foresees that a single user community within the company could alone generate savings of up to $10,000 per month.

Mobilized deskphone, Presence and Instant Messaging:  The DiVitas Mobile UC solution gives access to Avaya Communication Manager features including call transfer and conferencing, as well as access to CSX’s low-cost long distance and international calling plan.  The DiVitas solution also includes Unified Communications capabilities such as mobile Presence and mobile Instant Messaging (IM) to provide yet more options for improving reachability and productivity among mobile workers. Visual Voicemail is another feature users can take advantage of in their quest for affordable mobile telecommunications and a fast Fixed Mobile Convergence ROI.

One number for all your calls (single number reach): CSX professionals can manage their availability when away from the office and can receive their calls via their corporate number on their DiVitas dual-mode handset. Callers don’t need to know CSX workers’ cell numbers or home numbers, enhancing privacy, security and work-life balance. When calls are unanswered, the call is delivered to the corporate Avaya voicemail system, not the cell phone voicemail. This eliminates the wasteful (time and money) practice of missed calls and having to check multiple locations for business messages.

CSX is an innovator when it comes to being a green transportation company, and it makes it a priority to reduce its footprint on our planet. Now CSX is following this same green strategy with it's cost-reducing mobile-communications strategy.

Avaya made a major announcement this week, naming DiVitas as its preferred dual-mode solution. As you can imagine, this is exciting news for us given Avaya’s size (number one in North America’s PBX market) – and given the fact that we are a startup company in an emerging market.

But it’s also big news for Avaya due to DiVitas’ leadership in the Mobile Unified Communications space (emerging or not, Mobile UC is a hot market). A key reason that Avaya selected DiVitas is our Mobile UC solution offers much more than our FMC counterparts (who focus primarily on seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular). In addition to seamless roaming, DiVitas users also get Presence, Visual Voicemail, single-number reach and mobilized deskphone (phone number and mid-call functions). And we are now extending these capabilities to Avaya users in an integrated package.

As one analyst (FierceVoIP’s Doug Mohney) put it, Avaya’s “Mobile UC partnership with DiVitas Networks smacks of bigness for both parties, given Avaya's market share and DiVitas' solution.”

Bigness aside, together we are providing the promise of helping mobile workers do their jobs just as though they were seated at their desks – without having to juggle two phone numbers (desktop and cell) or spend an arm and a leg on cell bills (thanks to free WiFi calls).

This is a snapshot of how an Avaya user’s dual-mode world looks as a result of the Avaya-DiVitas partnership:

• Roam seamlessly between WiFi and cellular (more minutes spent on free WiFi vs. expensive cellular).
• The same number as their deskphone (single-number reach means mobile workers are easier to reach and they waste less time returning missed calls).
• Mid-call functions i.e. extension dialing, call forward, conference calling, etc. (business calls are handled the same way as when they are using a deskphone).
• Their dual-mode phone and deskphone share a single mailbox thanks to the tight integration between DiVitas and Avaya’s Modular Messaging voicemail system (reduces frustration wasted-time checking multiple mailboxes).
• Avaya voicemail messages can be eyeballed and individually played according to each message’s individual priority (no more time wasted listening to low-priority messages before getting to the urgent stuff).
• Their Presence status is broadcasted (indicating if you are available by voice and/or text, or if you are unavailable for communication at that moment maximizes the ability to be reached).

Avaya is considered a leader in traditional UC, which is their core business.  And we are the leader in Mobile UC.  Therefore, this is a story of “Traditional UC” teaming up with “Mobile UC”, and in this story Avaya and DiVitas are making history.

To: RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie
From: DiVitas Networks

Dear Mr. Balsillie,

We are writing to you as a fellow player in the mobile communications market – not as a RIM competitor, but as your future Mobile UC partner.

After reading your recent interview with the Financial Times – and learning how RIM is responding to Blackberry competition from the likes of Apple’s iPhone -  we feel compelled to extend an important message: Let’s unite Blackberry devices with DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications.

RIM is a proven winner in the market for enterprise smartphones. And DiVitas is the leader in Mobile Unified Communications. You stated the need to offer this technology to your customers in your interview with Financial Times' Ingrid Lunden. Why reinvent the wheel? Integration between DiVitas and Blackberry will enable you to quickly deliver a competitive edge in a cutthroat market.

We are convinced this would be a win-win for both parties. And judging by your comments about discussions with CIOs, you probably agree. “There is a “real urgency” around wanting more mobile unified communications … having the ability to integrate the BlackBerry devices with their existing PBXs,” you told Ms. Lunden.

Your perceived demand among your customers for Mobile UC/PBX integration makes perfect sense to us. We know CIOs want to reduce their mobile communications costs. At the same time, they want to make their employees more reachable. Mobile Unified Communications (Fixed Mobile Convergence technology combined with Unified Communications apps) lets companies reach these goals (cost cutting and increased mobility) by providing several capabilities:

1- WiFi calling to reduce monthly telecom bills (WiFi minutes don’t count against the cell plan):

• WiFi calls placed or received on-campus calls are free.
• International calls are free when placed or received over WiFi.
• WiFi calls placed or received from hotspots (home office, airport, coffee shop, hotel, etc.) are free.
• Mobile users can additionally create their own WiFi hotspot in any hotel room with WiFi – they can place free calls via WiFi and use their laptops simultaneously.
• Bridge vendors (who can charge thousands of dollars per month) can be eliminated by using DiVitas for free, in-house bridge lines for conference calling (international and local).

2- Mobile workers carry a single device and a single number to make them consistently reachable:

• Support for the Single-Number Reach capability makes a mobile device behave like a deskphone. This means mobile workers are available by a single phone number – the deskphone number – which results in fewer missed calls and helps eliminate the waste of expensive cell minutes

3- Companies leverage their existing communications investment:

• Deploying voice over the existing WLAN gives companies more bang for the WiFi buck.
• PBX integration provides support for existing deskphone features (call forward, extension dialing, call waiting, etc.).
• Mobile workers are available as if they were seated at their desks, regardless of where they are located (on-campus, in cellular mode or in a WiFi hotspot) when they place or receive calls.

4- Taking advantage of productivity gains through Unified Communications applications:

• Presence ensures that mobile workers are consistently reachable by allowing them to broadcast their availability and how best to be reached (phone, text, not available, etc.).
• Micro-blogging provides status details about where the mobile worker is and what they are doing (in a meeting, catching a flight, in the office, at the dentist, etc.).
• Instant Messaging (IM) can replace expensive text messaging for brief, discreet communication … but at no additional cost (provided there is a data plan).
• Visual Voicemail allows mobile users to eyeball messages sitting in their inbox, and decide which should be read first. This saves expensive cellular minutes and time.
• Single Voicemail Inbox Management means that mobile workers have only one voicemail inbox to manage --  the corporate mobile phone and corporate deskphone inboxes are one and the same.

Mr. Balsillie, the smartphone market is white-hot right now. And RIM needs to act quickly to maintain Blackberry’s position as the leading enterprise smartphone. There’s no quicker way to getting there than by dropping a proven solution into the Blackberry mix and offering it to your existing and prospective customers ASAP.

Sincerely,

DiVitas Networks

By Prashant Chauhan

If you are one of the myriad organizations feeling the brunt of this economic downturn, it seems like you should be able to qualify for an Economic Stimulus Package. But you can’t qualify unless you are part of the elite: A cash-strapped bank who gave out bad loans, an automaker who totally took its eye off the ball, a local or state government whose tax revenues just dried up. Or you need to be in the business of creating a green revolution, in the business of curing the incurable...

But if you are just trying to run a decent enterprise that is forced to control costs and increase productivity to survive this downturn, sorry, you are on your own. There ain't no Economic Stimulus Package to bail you out. The average Joe-Enterprise has to bail itself out in order to survive and emerge out of this downturn.

If this describes your organization, it's very likely that you are making the tough choices of downsizing your workforce and of lowering your other operating costs. You know that you've got to live with this economic mess for some time to come. And amid all this, you have also come to realize that the only way you are going to maintain and grow your customers and revenues is by making the most of your surviving employees. In short, you must learn to use the double-edged sword of cutting the costs while maintaining, or increasing, productivity.

But things are not as impossible as they seem. At least not when it comes to controlling your telecommunications cost. There are some valuable tools out there to help you cut your enterprise communication cost while actually increasing your employee productivity in the process. And the Mobile Unified Communications solution from DiVitas Networks, for one, has the right ingredients to help make this happen. DiVitas provides an enterprise with several means for slashing costs while still unleashing employee productivity:
 
1- Free WiFi calling to reduce monthly telecom bills:

• WiFi calls placed or received on-campus calls are free.
• International calls are free when placed or received over WiFi.
• WiFi calls placed or received from hotspots (home office, airport, coffee shop, hotel, etc.) are free.
• Mobile users can additionally create their own WiFi hotspot in any hotel room with WiFi – they can place free calls via WiFi and use their laptops simultaneously.
• Bridge vendors (who can charge thousands of dollars per month) can be eliminated by using DiVitas for free, in-house bridge lines for conference calling (international and local).

2- Taking advantage of productivity gains through Unified Communications applications:

• Presence ensures that mobile workers are consistently reachable by allowing them to broadcast their availability and how best to be reached (phone, text, not available, etc.).
• Micro-blogging provides status details about where the mobile worker is and what they are doing (in a meeting, catching a flight, in the office, at the dentist, etc.).
• Instant Messaging (IM) can replace expensive text messaging for brief, discreet communication … but at no additional cost (provided there is a data plan).
• Visual Voicemail allows mobile users to eyeball messages sitting in their inbox, and decide which should be read first. This saves expensive cellular minutes and time.
• Single Inbox Management means that mobile workers have only one voicemail inbox to manage because the corporate mobile phone and corporate deskphone inboxes are one and the same.

3- Companies leverage their existing communications investment:

• Deploying voice over the existing WLAN gives companies more bang for the WiFi buck.
• PBX integration provides support for existing deskphone features (call forward, extension dialing, call waiting, etc.). Mobile workers are available as if they were seated at their desks, regardless of where they are located (on-campus, in cellular mode or in a WiFi hotspot) when they place or receive a call.

4- Mobile workers carry a single device and a single number to make them consistently reachable:

• Support for the Single-Number Reach capability makes a mobile device behave like a deskphone. This means mobile workers are available by a single phone number – the deskphone number – which results in fewer missed calls and helps eliminate the waste of expensive cell minutes.

DiVitas doesn’t yet have President Obama’s ear, so we don’t have control over where the U.S. government’s economic-stimulus dollars are spent. But we do offer a bailout … Silicon-Valley style. Companies deploying the DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications solution can dramatically reduce their cell phone bills without sacrificing productivity. And they can realize ROI in a matter of months. Now that’s some stimulating news!

Mobile phones are replacing corporate deskphones at such a rate that companies should consider Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) a must-have solution. This is because Mobile UC will help them manage the rising tide of mobile devices and curb – rather than absorb – the associated costs.

According to a new Gartner report – Enterprise Mobile Phones Will Replace Desktop Phones in North America – the number of enterprise mobile phones in North America will overtake the number desktop phones by 2011. What does this mean to businesses? They need to manage this influx of phones in order to control cost and usage.

Among Gartner’s preparedness recommendations and where DiVitas Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC) should be deployed to resolve issues:  

Gartner Recommendation: Enterprises should mitigate the higher costs of wireless services by looking at alternative in-building solutions, including mobile unified communications and zoned pricing.

DiVitas Solution: With DiVitas Mobile UC, companies can ROI in a matter of months because the solution immediately helps reduce mobile-communications costs through free WiFi calling. In contrast, a company can spend as much as $100,000 on a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) or picocell equipment and implementation alone. DiVitas (which includes Fixed Mobile Convergence technology for seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular) is a software solution that integrates with any vendor’s communications-infrastructure equipment (WLAN, PBX, handset, carrier etc.). It is a fraction of the DAS or picocell cost to deploy because, most often, the WiFi network has already been deployed by the hosting enterprise. And it is managed in-house by a company’s IT department as opposed to a carrier.  

Gartner Recommendation: Enterprises should prepare for the onslaught of mobile devices by writing and extending mobile phone policies across the different areas of IT, not just telecommunications.

DiVitas Solution: IT departments both want and need to control mobile phone usage in a similar way they control desk phone usage. In doing so, they can take advantage of carriers’ pooled minute programs by having all mobile workers on the same cellular services vs. paying individually and submitting monthly expense reports. This will dramatically save on cell minute costs.

Gartner Recommendation: Enterprises should carefully plan who gets wireless service and how that service is managed.

DiVitas Solution: With DiVitas, mobile workers who spend all, or the majority of, their time on campus can be WiFi-only. This means all calls are free. They are also able to move about the campus freely and all the while they are taking advantage of the DiVitas feature set. No missed calls at no additional (celluar) cost. Their deskphone and DiVitas features go where they go.

Gartner Recommendation: Prepare to remove unused and unwanted desk phones to reduce support costs.

DiVitas Solution: Many workers today prefer to be accessible by one device. DiVitas makes this possible by making a mobile phone behave as a deskphone. The mobile device’s phone number is the same as the deskphone extension, they share the same visual voicemail inbox and all of the DiVitas UC features (i.e. IM, Presence and microblogging) are available, regardless of location.

If Gartner’s prediction is true – that that 23% of enterprise mobile
users will only have a mobile phone, compared with 4% today – then companies will want a solution that brings those phones into the fold for better manageability. DiVitas does this, and it significantly cuts costs in the process.

There was a recent flurry of blogs lately from industry pundits on the topic of “human latency” and how to solve this communication problem.

No, human latency doesn’t mean “humans who work late.” According to one of my favorite definitions, which was included in a recent blog posted on No Jitter, human latency is the “delay in a business process that results when human interaction or intervention is required.” This was written by Brent Kelly of Wainhouse Research, and in response to a previous post by No Jitter’s Eric Krapf.

For his part, Krapf contends that human latency is “the time it takes for workers to move from one communications channel – say email – to another one – say, the telephone – to respond to whatever issue they have to deal with.”

The pundit who sparked this No Jitter blog thread was Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala, who posted two relevant blogs to the site. One blog delved into the topic of Mobile UC, called Mobile Unified Communications Provides More Bang For The Buck Than On The Desktop. The other blog is Presence, not VoIP is the Foundation of Unified Communications.

Like DiVitas, Kerravala is keen on Presence and mobility – two key technology components of full-blown Mobile Unified Communications (Instant Messaging is the third.) He says “mobility also raises the value proposition of integrated Presence …. time is a precious commodity when a user is mobile, so trying to reach users that aren’t available is frustrating and time wasting – so – having knowledge of the user’s Presence before you try and reach that person is critical. Integrated Presence on a mobile device will allow us to maximize productivity …”

There’s more. As I said, the Mobile Unified Communications pundits have been a chatty bunch recently s – and it hasn’t all come from No Jitter. Unified Communications (UC) Strategies analyst, Art Rosenberg, also chimed in with his blog on Presence, Human Latency, and Telephone Calls.

Rosenberg acknowledges the communication problems caused by human latency when he says, “Because UC involves making contact with and responding to people, the real value of UC will have to be found at the communication end points … this means looking at the flexibility and efficiency of user interfaces for communication and the devices that support such interfaces to make people an efficient part of time-sensitive work flow processes, regardless of their location and environment.”

According to Rosenberg, Presence alone can’t solve the human latency problem. Rather, a combination of Presence and IM is the solution. In his blog he says, “Rather than guessing about the availability of the person to take a phone call, Presence information and IM communication allow the contact initiator to check for accessibility to a call recipient and request permission via IM to make a call before blindly making a call attempt.”

In the world of business communications, human latency translates to a whole lot of missed calls, voicemails, more missed calls, maybe some IMing, text messaging and perhaps even an email or two in the mix. It’s about one person trying to contact another in order to extend a thought as simple as “I need to sit in on this conference, what’s the bridge number?” Or it can be as complex as “How should we solve this customer’s problem?”

Human latency is about not being able to reach the right person at the right time, the resulting delay in communication … and the business consequences of inefficient communication. Mobile UC is squarely directed at solving this problem, and it uses Presence, IM and mobility (seamless roaming between WiFi and cellular networks) as its key weapons in this war on human latency.