It's been about a month since VoiceCon San Francisco and I've had some time to reflect on the briefings and updates that I had and there was one in particular I would like to follow up on.DiVitas Networks is a company that I've followed fairly closely since their launch four years ago. Anyone who knows them probably knows them as an FMC vendor. They, along with Agito, helped to evangelize the value of dual-mode voice and have had some degree of success in this space.
Over the past month, I've seen several blogs and articles criticizing this move since they've spent so much time evangelizing the FMC market. However, I actually applaud this move because the market demands warrant it.
Big or small, the companies that survive--tough economic times or not--are the ones that adapt. Of course there are no guarantees, but having the ability to let go of a flagging strategy or technology in response to industry trends is a key herd-separator.
I can list a million companies that fall into the "failure to adapt" category, but of course (you knew it was coming) Nortel is the supreme leader in this camp, now best-known for having fallen hard and fast. In the other corner ,we have companies like hardware-turned-software player, IBM. Be honest--in your wildest dreams did you ever expect to see "Big Blue" morph from selling mainframes to selling touchy-feely products like collaboration software where it competes with the likes of companies called "Yammer"?
Naturally, startups fall squarely into this survival-of-the-fittest camp--after all, something like 90 percent fail to make it past their first year, right? The onus to adapt falls squarely on startup leaders, and it's not very often you see one with the wherewithal to part with the idea they incubated on, even if the hottest new trend were to hit them in the face. In general the founders of a start up are so passionate about what they built, they can't see past how great their solution is.
It's for this reason that I was impressed with the about-face that DiVitas Networks made at VoiceCon. In a brave move, DiVitas has shifted its focus away from the market it spent so long building, and is wrapping its strategy firmly around three industry trends that should be much more sustainable:
1.) Web-enabled smartphones such as iPhone, Blackberry and Android: I've heard quibbling for the past year about whether or not iPhone is going to be adopted by the enterprise. Well, users have settled that debate--the iPhone era (personal, business or otherwise) is officially here. And with Google's Android phone (billed as the "iPhone killer") attracting considerable attention, you'd be nuts to ignore this opportunity. Within the next couple of years, nearly every mobile worker will be using an Android, Blackberry or iPhone. DiVitas is positioning itself as a need-to-have enterprise mobile communications tool by ensuring that its software can run on any web-enabled phone--whether that device is personally-owned (and expensed monthly) or company-purchased. Additionally, Web based delivery means that users can bring their own devices to work without having to heavily involve IT in making it a secure corporate device. The alternative is to build native applications, and any developer who has tried that will tell you how hard it is to do for more than a couple of platforms.
2.) Cloud computing: Again, any company ignoring this trend and how they can adopt it in their strategy is short-sighted. More and more functionality is moving out to the cloud and by placing much of the information out in the cloud, a worker is able to retrieve it no matter which device they are on or what network they are on. Anyone that has lost or broken a mobile phone wishes at that moment the information was in the cloud. DiVitas will use the cloud to deliver its solution, making it much easier to scale the solution.
3.) Mobile social networking: I believe that social media integration with UC and the corporate director will be one of the major themes for 2010. Organizations will need to understand how to leverage these capabilities across different mediums, including mobile communications. For me, being able view my colleague's user profiles from my Blackberry interface, see who is available to talk or IM, and have that conversation take place with a touch or click of my screen is a must-have. DiVitas is marrying mobility, the web, corporate telephony and social networking together to create a single user experience (and isn't that the point of UC??).
This brings me full circle to my main point. Most of the post-VoiceCon analysis of DiVitas's Web-client launch from my colleagues has been focused on dual-mode and the fact that his technology is no longer DiVitas's priority. In the same breath, much of this analysis has pointed out that despite the efforts of disruptive FMC vendors like DiVitas, dual-mode has not made it out of the starting gate. I think more start ups should have the guts to move on, if the market demands it. As a busy, highly mobile individual, I'm way more concerned about being able to access Facebook, Twitter and IM from my Blackberry than I am with seamless roaming, and I'm positive other busy mobile workers would agree.
