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Orative Enterprise Software Puts You in Touch With the Right Person (Even if You Don’t Know Their Name)TMCnet Associate Editor
Professionals working in today’s fast-paced business world need integrated communications solutions to help them manage the enterprise while they’re on the road. Having to constantly switch between a PDA and cell phone (or cell phone and laptop) while “on the fly” is, obviously, not the best way to accomplish this. As a result, new, integrated solutions are starting to emerge. One such solution is Orative’s Enterprise Software, which takes an ordinary cell phone and turns it into a business phone. The company today announced availability of version 2.0 of the software, which adds “enhanced” presence capabilities – more specifically, the ability to reach the right person in an enterprise without knowing his or her name or extension. According to VP of Marketing John Drewry, what Orative has done is taken Enterprise Software’s existing presence capabilities and enhanced them so they can be integrated with any enterprise’s communications system. “This way, if a salesperson needs to get in touch with someone in, say, finance, to discuss a price quote, but they don’t know the person’s name, they can just type in ‘price quote’ on the [software’s] dashboard and that will automatically put them in touch with the right person via the directory,” Drewry said, giving an example. This “resource finder” saves the user from having to access a company directory and take a “best guess” as to who the right person is to call. Instead, the user can request assistance from experts by skill set or group (and by who is available), so that time sensitive issues are resolved quickly. In this sense, the software creates efficiencies across the enterprise. Another new feature of version 2.0 is “corporate voice mail integration,” which allows for notification and playback of voice mail messages on mobile handsets. Drewry said this eliminates the need for employees to dial into their office systems to check voicemail. With Enterprise Software, the user is alerted via visual cues when a message comes in – cues which can include a short text message as well as a photo of the person calling. “It’s just like caller ID, only with more information,” Drewry said. Drewry added that Orative has taken a lot of time to ensure that the software interoperates with cell phones – and also that it provides a friendly, simple-to-use user interface. “We’ve taken a lot of time to study the use case of a common cell phone,” he said, adding that Orative did strenuous study of which buttons and keys are easiest to use for various functions. (Most of it is menu-driven anyway – the user is mostly scrolling and flipping between screens). In terms of viewing the directories, Drewry said other users are shown based on “different tiers of availability,” and also pointed out that the directories can be customized by the user in any number of ways (alphabetically, by department, by group, etc.). “People can also automate this through their company calendars,” he said, adding that in this sense the software makes a cell phone into a scheduling tool. “One of the biggest advantages of this software is that it can be used on a variety of cell phones and across different carriers,” Drewry said. “So you don’t have to buy expensive phones for your employees to use this – most $50 to $70 phones will work.” A variety of popular cell phones sporting Symbian OS, Java and BREW (including Nokia phones) platforms can support Orative Enterprise Software. But of course, you’ll also need the Orative Enterprise Server to deliver an end-to-end solution. The server runs on a standards-based, Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform that operates behind the enterprise firewall. Beyond the new “enhanced” presence capabilities, version 2.0 has all the same features as its predecessor, including the ability to coordinate conversations, collaborate with colleagues, screen unwanted calls and interruptions, and access personal phone books. In related news, Orative announced today that it has joined the Cisco Technology Developer Program as an IP Communications participant. This means Orative’s Enterprise Software version 2.0 has met the Cisco Technology Developer Program criteria for interoperability with the Cisco Unity product, version 4.0.5. For more information, visit www.orative.com. Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page. |