www.insightssuccess.com December 2017
The
10 Best
ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION
Solution Providers
2017
Tech Concern
Technology, The Core of Every Single Company Today
Workodynamics Christophe Reyes
What makes a Company the best place to Work for?
Managing Director UCaaS
CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS
Driving Digital Transformation through Cloud Solutions that Put People at the Heart of the Workplace
Editor’s Note
Advanced Enterprise Collaboration Technologies Introducing a real-time Revolution in the Business Workflows Arena
W
e live in an era where advanced technology allies societies with the developments in the area of communication expertise, now we have access to more sophisticated and active methods of communication. People can interact with each other through electronic mediums, and this has paved the way for corporations and industries to connect their treasured partners and employees with superior approaches. There are lots of ways in which meetings and conferences can take place with participants being at different locations at the same time. Technology development has enabled us to connect with people anytime anywhere in the world effortlessly. Organizations are benefiting from the augmented digitization of the workplace through the productivity, cost savings, more mobile and agile workforce, and generally amplified flexibility and adaptability in an ever increasingly complex marketplace. Enterprises are collaborating more globally, and with more diverse and global staff. Today’s workforces are freer to go where they want to work instead of staying where work originates. Easier access to skill development resources is making vertical moves easier, too, for both people and organizations. These digital approaches empower digital collaboration in the workforce and are set for one of the largest shifts in this current year. New technologies and techniques provide several paths towards the innovative and effective methods. All of these advanced tools either encompass lightweight chat, reasoning
technologies, and app integration. Additionally, all new methods are very mobile friendly, unlike the previous generations of enterprise collaboration tools. In short, the collaboration world is empowered again with new inventions. We’ve not seen a new wave of collaboration offerings like this from significant vendors since enterprise social software first arrived over a half-decade ago. With these advanced technologies, solution providers are delivering real-time revolution and are making effects in traditional work culture through their innovations. All these future advancements in the collaboration technologies are enabling us to think beyond physical boundaries. Furthermore, the developments in communication methods will also aid organizations in modernizing the work culture. In order to highlight the enterprises which are greasing the wheels of collaboration in this evolving industry, Insights Success has critically evaluated and curated a list of “The 10 Best Enterprise Collaboration Solution Providers 2017,” which are revolutionizing collaborative businesses and driving diverse strategies to help organizations extend their business horizons. Featuring in the issue as the Cover Story is Arkadin Cloud Communications, which is one of the fastest growing cloud communications service providers in the world and is ensuring increased growth and success by delivering positive collaboration experiences. The issue also includes, Wildix, a multinational company that develops browser-based Unified Communications solutions and VoIP products; SilexPro, which creates revolutionary video collaboration services for enhanced audio-visual communication across the globe; Hoylu AB, a premier innovative company that delivers platform-based solutions to enable powerful collaboration and highly scalable digital workspaces; and ReviewStudio, whose collaborative platform offers creative teams a real-time, mobile-friendly application for managing the review and approval workflows of their digital media projects. Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO Standpoint's of some of the leading industry experts. Let's Start Reading!
Poulami Das
C O V E R S TO R Y
Arkadin Cloud Communications: Driving Digital Transformation through Cloud Solutions that Put People at the Heart of the Workplace
08 CONTENTS
ARTICLE Tech Concern Technology, the Core of Every Single Company Today
30
Workodynamics What makes a company the best place to work for?
20
Cloud Management Implications of Workload Management in Hybrid and Multi-Cloud
Unity Insights Is Uni ed Communications Worth the Effort?
16 Expert’s Viewpoint The Power of Converged Solutions
36
22
Hoylu:
SilexPro:
Introducing Advanced Group Collaboration in Highly Scalable Digital Workplaces
Enhancing Group Collaboration through Innovation
ReviewStudio:
Wildix:
Reinventing the Collaborative Platform for Creative Review
Providing Browser Based Uni ed Communications and VOIP PBX
18
34
26
38
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Poulami Das Co-Editors David Smith Sourav Mukherjee Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Rahul Kavanekar Art Editor Vinod Alhat Business Development Manager Mark Harris Steve Smith Marketing Manager Alex Noel Business Development Executive Thomas, Joseph, John, Mary Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com
December, 2017 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.com
Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Ofce No. 513,510 5th Floor, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: 020-69400110, 111, 112 Email: info@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.in
Copyright © 2017 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights success. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.
COVER STORY
Best Enterprise
10 Collaboration
The
Solution Providers 2017
CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS Driving Digital Transformation through Cloud Solutions that Put People at the Heart of the Workplace
Christophe Reyes Managing Director, UCaaS
‘‘
While most organizations approach UC and Digital Transformation programs from a technology
perspective, I take a more holistic view the organization is critical to success.
‘‘
since ‘people’ adoption in all areas of
M
ore businesses than ever before are using Cloud Communications, driven by the simplicity of the technology and the lower investment and maintenance costs. Cloud communications is more than simply Voice over IP (VoIP), hosted PBX, CaaS or Unified Communications (UC). It is a revolutionary way to build, deploy, and scale enterprise communication systems that reduce Capital and Operational costs, provide services in higher definition, and allow people to work in ways and places that they never imagined, adding greatly to productivity, operational efficiencies and a better work-life balance. The Cloud enables enterprises to move away from outdated and expensive technologies at a much faster pace. Arkadin Cloud Communications is a world leader in the field, innovating and customizing cutting-edge Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) solutions for its clients. The company is transforming and adapting rapidly to take advantage of new business opportunities in the fast growing and dynamic Cloud market sector which is expected to reach up to €30 billion by 2020. Arkadin began as an audio conferencing services provider but diversified approximately 10 years ago to include web conferencing, video conferencing and large virtual events, while Unified Communications services were added in the last five years. Today, Arkadin has the most extensive UC&C presence in the world, with over 50,000 customers spanning the largest global Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses that are serviced through a network of 56 operations centers in 34 countries. As a member of the NTT Group, one of the world’s largest ICT companies, Arkadin has sophisticated networking and telecommunications capabilities for unmatched performance and reliability. Together with its partnerships with leading technology companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco, Arkadin is able to offer an attractive all-in-onevendor service package to meet all Cloud Communications needs, resulting in tremendous efficiencies and scale for clients.
Arkadin’s mission is to lead companies to greater growth and success by delivering outstanding Cloud Communications experiences that put people at the heart of the digital workplace. Its product and operations teams are constantly searching for innovative technologies and business strategies to ensure its customers are prepared for the demands of a changing digital landscape and new generation of workers. It is gaining widespread support for its approach by demonstrating that Cloud deployment is the best and most efficient way to deliver digital communications. The Trailblazers of the Company Through the leadership of Board member Olivier de Puymorin, who founded the company in 2001, Arkadin has grown into one of the fastest growing providers of Cloud UC&C services, with a workforce of over 1,300 Arkadians. To ensure a smooth transition into the Cloud sector, Mr. de Puymorin assembled a talented team of executives under the leadership of CEO Didier Jaubert. Mr. Jaubert appointed Christophe Reyes to lead the company’s global Cloud UC practice as Managing Director, UCaaS. Mr. Reyes’ 25+ years of experience in the high-tech industry in EMEA and track record of success in driving strategy for global companies through Arkadin’s Global Strategic Accounts Group (GSA) has had a significant impact on Arkadin’s growth. And it has given him valuable insights into what customers require for their digital transformation journeys and Cloud UC deployments. Turning Challenges into a Roadmap of Opportunities While the need for digital workplace transformation is well understood, Mr. Reyes says the challenge for businesses is how to harness Cloud technologies that deliver the productivity and operational efficiencies to meet their business objectives, and that will receive broad support and engagement throughout the organization. Without that, many companies will be reluctant to give up their legacy, premise-based equipment. Mr. Reyes points to four key challenges for the industry,
communications needs gives us a tremendous competitive advantage.
Ÿ Digital Workplaces that Align with Cultural Identities: Digital transformations involve both technological and cultural evolutions. This is often misunderstood. The environmental and cultural impacts on employees must be addressed to capture their hearts and minds. Otherwise it will be virtually impossible to achieve wide-spread adoption of new Cloud technologies. Ÿ Convergence of Traditional and Non-Traditional Ecosystems: The Cloud Communications market is becoming attractive to a much wider swath of vendors than in the past few years. Telephony and Telecom operators, Cloud infrastructure specialists, software providers and device and infrastructure manufacturers are vying for this business, resulting in a crowded marketplace that makes it complicated for businesses to choose the right partners. Ÿ Convergence of Synchronous and Asynchronous Technologies in the Cloud: Combining synchronous technologies, such as telephony or conferencing, and asynchronous applications, such as email or messaging, is complicated since they have different specifications for deployments. A good example is the migration of voice from on premise PBX systems to Cloud UC
deployments. The co-existence of the two causes a lot of frustration, as a result many businesses are not willing or able to replace their PBX systems. Arkadin has responded to this need with services that combine cloud PBX functionality with leading UC technologies.
Ÿ Network Readiness, Security and Data Sovereignty: Migration to the Cloud results in increased demand on network resources. Service providers need to enhance their network infrastructures for an acceptable level of service. There are also new security and integration issues to be addressed. Arkadin follows best practices with ISO 27001 certified services to ensure a high level of security for large enterprises. Mr. Reyes underscores the importance of seeking the guidance of experienced service providers with the technological and customer support capabilities for satisfying immediate and long-term needs. Distinguished Services that Focus on the User: It’s a People Thing! According to Mr. Reyes, Arkadin’s success and long-term strategy for leadership in the Cloud is based on the user: It’s a people thing! Everything starts with the user, not the technology. He cites specific Arkadin programs that ensure customers succeed:
‘‘
Cloud Communications technologies can fundamentally change the workplace by enabling a true anytime, anyplace, any device work culture, which underscores the need for all departments to embrace it, particularly HR and Top Management.
‘‘
each of which is being addressed by Arkadin to ensure long-term leadership in the Cloud.
‘‘
‘‘ Our ability to offer a one-stop-shop for all of our clients’ digital
Arkadin understands the wider digital transformation agenda of its customers and how UC is integral to digital maturity.
‘‘
‘‘
Digital Readiness Assessments: The first requirement for any Cloud/Digital Transformation initiative is an assessment of the people impact for ensuring broad engagement at all levels of the organization. Arkadin’s assessment program identifies client’s business processes and network and desktop readiness to determine if they support the needs of their workforce. Change Management: A company’s digital transformation and migration to Cloud UC technologies provides a platform for massive organizational change. Bundled voice, conferencing and video applications have the power to determine where and how people work, how they collaborate with customers, partners and employees so the effects are far reaching with both technology and people revolutions at play. To be successful with measurable ROI, organizations must have a plan to address impacts on employees. Catalyst, a recent Arkadin client, needed a partner to drive change to support a telephony overhaul to Skype for Business. According to Project Manager Owen Davis, Arkadin’s change management service was instrumental in winning their business: “Arkadin has been a great partner. They focused on the change and how to manage it so our people would not be left behind or left out.” Arkadin’s change management program includes intensive training and the appointment of early adopters as evangelists to champion the new technologies. Customer Success Teams: Dedicated customer success teams are in all regions to ensure close client relationships and services are up and running smoothly. End-user training programs are carefully measured, and regular Customer Satisfaction Surveys are implemented to address issues. Arkadin’s Cloud experts are also dedicated to consultancy for developing future IT road-maps. Innovative Customer Adoption Program: To address the long-standing challenge of user adoption, Arkadin created a best-in-class end-user product onboarding portal called SmartStart. The easy and intuitive portal, which is customized for each user’s preferences, has everything required for an onboarding journey in an easily accessible place. Smartstart has significantly shortened the adoption time for Arkadin’s collaboration services, and minimized
the disruption caused by business change for getting users up and running quickly and efficiently. Global Support: Arkadin is a global company by its presence, culture and reach. Its teams operate in the same time zone as the clients they serve, speak the same language, and share the same culture. This enables them to be truly responsive in delivering end-to-end, 24-hour multilingual support, fast and efficient roll-outs, highly effective training and immediate response to customer issues. This is a huge advantage and a key competitive differentiator. Endeavors for a Bright Digital Future Arkadin aims to remain at the forefront of Digital Cloud Communications technologies by bringing their clients into the future with simple to use UC&C cloud services that enable a truly digital workplace for greater productivity and ROI. Alliances will continue with leading Cloud UC&C companies to ensure clients have the most advanced services. Arkadin is also planning to leverage innovations like AI and Bot technology to facilitate greater user adoption in the digital workplace. The company has a vision to integrate UC into business applications and is now focusing on innovative approaches to all aspects of the business (operations, product development, support, marketing, etc.) to deliver a premium customer experience.
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Company Name
Management
Brief
Aerohive aerohive.com
David K. Flynn CEO
Aerohive provides Fast, Reliable, and Secure HQ-LIKE network access for remote locations and teleworkers.
Arkadin Cloud Communications arkadin.com
Christophe Reyes Managing Director
Arkadin is one of the fastest growing cloud communications service providers in the world.
Atlassian Enterprise offers the business critical products, premier support, and strategic services you need to get the most out of your Atlassian applications.
Atlassian atlassian.com
Mike Cannon-Brookes CEO
Fluix fluix.io
Igor Zhadanov CEO & Co-founder
Fluix is a robust, secure and cost-effective solution to transform your organization’s document processes by taking them to the iPad.
Stein Revelsby CEO
Hoylu AB, a premier innovative company, delivers platform solutions to enable powerful collaboration and highly scalable digital workspaces.
Iron Bow ironbow.com
RENE B. LAVIGNE CEO
Iron Bow transforms technology investments into business capabilities. They are flexible in the deployment of technology using the right combination of on premise, cloud and as-aservice. Their team is laser focused on designing a solution that will make the difference in client's day-to-day work.
Luware AG luware.com
Philipp Beck CEO
ReviewStudio reviewstudio.com
Stuart Feldman Founder & President
ReviewStudio’s collaborative platform offers creative teams a real-time, mobile-friendly application for managing the review and approval workflows of their digital media projects.
SilexPro silexpro.com
Ronald Hajj CEO & Founder
SilexPro creates revolutionary video collaboration services for enhanced audio-visual communication across the globe.
Wildix wildix.com
Steve Osler CEO
Wildix is a multinational company that develops browser-based Unified Communications solutions and VoIP products.
HOYLU AB hoylu.com
Luware is a leading provider of custom service platforms based on Microsoft Unified Communications technologies. The portfolio includes contact center, team ACD, or single workstation solutions for the chat, voice, video, email, social media, and co-browsing channels.
Is Unied Communications Worth the Effort?
P
ick up any periodical; monitor any blog and you will receptionist and my admin. Great to start with; quickly a security hole where all sorts of folks were ringing me up hear tale of the power of Unified Communications direct. Yuck! Not a fan of too much communication. and how organizations galore are basking in a connected world. But is this fact or fiction? Fast forward to 2016, where the mantra is a Unified, Global, Universal world where we are all peers For decades, business has progressively sought quicker, communicating via phone, email, text, mobile, video, social more direct and effective ways to communicate both media, and groupware (Slack,Yammer). We even use textinternally and externally. Not to show my age, but I grew up in the world of receptionists, large mail rooms, and pink to-speech and speech-to-text as we are too lazy to listen to our voicemails. Are we gaining ground or has the noise message slips. We just knew we were cutting edge. This level risen to where little is accomplished while we are gave way to fax machines, WordPerfect on our desktops, bombarded with information? My friend Heather Clancy and DID (Direct Inward Dial) where incoming calls were automatically routed direct to my desk phone, bypassing the opines on the social aspect in her Fortune column today:
16
December 2017
Unity Insights
At Peak, we tend to act in an advisory role with clients and strive to match their defined business processes with the available technology. A key component is providing just the right amount of unified connectivity for each role or usage model. For example, a call center agent needs telephony, text, and perhaps point to point video to serve the client, but should not receive incoming personal calls, extraneous emails, or be ordering shoes on Zappos at their desk. Access control is still a valid term. I recently rented a car using a kiosk at the rental call center. Great experience! While others formed a line in front of a harried counterperson, I had a quick video call with a pleasant an efficient agent in a far city and was behind the wheel in a snap. We had a data, video, and audio conversation. My paperwork was delivered to my phone while I strolled to the car. I brought up a QR code which was quickly scanned as I reached the gate. Effective use of technology….
Dave Casey Regional Vice President Peak Up Time
close behind. As we trained users in the use of their mobile client app, the universal question from executives (not sales or engineering) was “When can I use my iPhone to connect?” Each had a company phone (Blackberry) in one pocket, and a personal iPhone in the There are myriad UC systems available other. That is when I predicted Apple would win. (And I was smart enough today with varied capability and market acceptance. Two characteristics to purchase a few shares). define the winners; simplicity in Application integration is where a function, and tight integration to properly implemented UC system can application platforms. leverage the incredible sums spent on Enterprise ERP, CRM, and integrated The best technology, poorly delivered and overly complicated, will be swiftly databases. Information is delivered directly to stakeholders at their desk, be rejected by the user community. There is a reason iPhones triumph over on the road, at home, and unfortunately even on vacation. The flip side is technically superior and far less delivering a flawless presentation to expensive competing devices. Simple. your best client via desktop sharing Intuitive. Bulletproof. from your tablet whilst standing on the sidelines at the youth soccer game. Saw this first hand on a UC rollout With your boss and team conferenced several years ago. At the time in. We have seen corporations win Blackberry and Nokia ruled the corporate mobile market with Motorola “Best Place to Work” rankings due to December 2017
employees’ appreciation of technology to enable them to work anywhere. So UC is worth the effort when properly designed and implemented. It may require some open minded analysis as the company’s current providers often may not be the best choice for a UC rollout. And some folks will have to think ahead…. At Peak UpTime, our goal is to help you elevate the IT conversation to address business challenges. We identify innovative IT solutions to help you effectively serve your clients, and leverage technology to keep your teams operating efficiently. Celebrating our 30th anniversary in business in 2013, Peak has experienced growth and change in IT technology, but never wavered in its passion for serving our clients. Our history of serving clients and their corresponding reference, our strong financial position and capable, skilled team make Peak your natural choice to support your IT infrastructure.
17
Hoylu:
Stein Revelsby
CEO
‘‘
We do not try to
engage our customers
with one solution. We prefer to encourage
their freedom of choice and believe that it helps to future proof as technology continues
‘‘
its rapid innovation and
change
18
Introducing Advanced Group Collaboration in Highly Scalable Digital Workplaces
T
o manage advance digital industry changes, many leading organizations across business and government sectors have implemented a digital workplace strategy. By intelligently merging the technologies that many businesses already use, the digital workplace has broken down the communication barriers and is transforming employee experience to one promoting efficiency, growth, and innovation. The key to success, however, depends on the implementation of a digital workplace strategy — requiring one that is capable of driving true change within the organization. As workplaces become digital, the whole workforce and upper management can communicate and collaborate in many new and effective ways. The ability to combine productive business relationships beyond the natural work groups enables knowledge sharing across the organization. Keeping the inclusive video conferencing solution industry in the mind, Hoylu AB, a premier, innovative company, delivers platform solutions to enable powerful collaboration and highly scalable digital workspaces. Hoylu Software Suite is the critical tool of modern workplaces.
December 2017
Remarkable Voyage of the Organization Smart boards were initially introduced 25 years ago, but most people still use analog whiteboards and paper post-it notes in the office. Videoconferencing solutions, launched in the early 90s, have become better, especially the quality of voice and video; although the quality is still not ideal for true collaboration and sharing of content. Most systems do not offer good interoperability, and include expensive and proprietary hardware. The market for unified communication and collaboration is dominated by large global companies that have a legacy of proprietary thinking and the ambition to control the customer and its content. Today’s marketplace is becoming more fragmented, workforces more dispersed, and as hardware becomes commoditized, the real competitive advantage comes from the ability to innovate and be effective as a team. Hoylu has taken the entire scenario as an opportunity and started their journey with digital innovation in the user-friendly interface.
consulting, and operational roles. Stein, originally from Oslo, Norway, spent many years working in Scandinavia before moving to Los Angeles. He is passionate about technology and understands the importance of being hands-on and satisfying customers’ needs. He often compares business to sports and the importance of having a great team, along with good timing, hard work, and persistence. Efficient & Productive Vision of the Organization Hoylu’s Vision is to connect people and information in ways that are more efficient, productive, engaging, and fun. Hoylu enables people to create, share, present, or manage projects, structured as well as unstructured data using ultra large workspaces, projector walls, large touch displays and personal devices from anywhere, in real-time or when off-line.
The organization is a spin-off from Media Interaction Lab in Austria combined with an experienced management team and a senior Hoylu, established in December 2016, software development team in Seattle, US. The combined team has many recruited their team through a long years of experience and background in established personal contacts and working with intuitive technologies, network. They had huge global touch and pen-based input, user enterprises as pilot customers which helped them initiate their business and interface design and unified gave valuable guidance to their product communication. roadmap. By working closely with a Delivering Exclusive Products and team and moving fast with an Services experienced management, they have managed to continuously improve and Hoylu Software Suite is a platform that consists of four applications: Sketch prepare themselves for strong growth. (unlimited free-form canvas), Flow The Erudite Leader of the Company (pin-board the structuring of content), Insight (dashboard solution for Stein Revelsby, CEO of Hoylu AB, visualization of data and assets), and has more than 30 years of experience in domains like technology, investment Paper (connect real ink on paper in vector format with displays and banking, venture capital, strategy
December 2017
devices). The company provides a cloud-based platform but can also be used as a local solution and an offline as well as in combination with 3rd party applications for lean planning, designing, and any videoconferencing solutions in the market. Providing benefits for treasured clients Stein acclaims, “Clients are able to be more productive and efficient within their teams while using our platform. Our easy-to-use software allows for full participation from remote locations so everyone can contribute regardless of their location. Clients can get a better overview of projects and information with all artifacts saved in the same digital workspace and with input from third-party applications and data.” Most collaboration software today is prominently selling hardware. Hoylu is different because their platform is hardware agnostic. They provide multiple solutions to create an innovative technology which can be applied in future, given the rapid changes in the current industry trends. Forthcoming Intends “We will continue to develop our product portfolio with a strong focus on meeting large enterprise needs and growing our user base. We will continue to champion highly intuitive and innovative software solutions while we work closely with hardware companies to make more surfaces interactive and expand our market reach through a global network of resellers,” asserts Stein.
19
What makes a COMPANY the best place to WORK for?
H
ere are four words we don’t hear very often: “I love my job.”
An extensive research in the area have now found that the most engaged employees — those who are fully invested in their jobs and dedicated to their firms — are significantly more productive, enhance customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged. It’s important for employees to participate in their task enthusiastically, for the sake of their growth along with the company. But it turns out that only 20% of employees around the world are fully engaged at work. It’s a cut off that serves no one well. So what could be the solution? Where is the win-win for employees and employers? The solution is that employers must shift their focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them by supporting their core needs — emotional, physical, mental and spiritual — so they're freed, fueled and inspired to bring the best at work and prove themselves every day. Our primary need is to make enough money to live a decent lifestyle, but even at that, we cannot live by bread alone. Take a moment here and think about what makes you feel most excited to get to work in the morning, and makes you most loyal to your employer.
corporations do not meet that standard for many of their jobs, simply because of an unfair environment where a CEO is paid millions of dollars a year while an employee gets a modest sum for full time work that in some cases falls below the poverty line. · Treat employees like grown-ups. Share statistics with employees, listen to their ideas (or better yet, actively seek out and act upon their ideas). · Every employee who contributes his/her work must have a stake in the company’s success. It can be in the form of profit sharing, or stock options or bonuses tied to performance. If the company performs well in the market, all employees should share in the success, in meaningful ways. · Design office’s working environments that are comfortable, safe and appealing to work in. Some offices include a range of lateral spaces that allow for privacy, collaboration, or simply to hang out. · Provide high quality, healthy food, at the lowest possible prices in canteens, cafeterias and also vending machines at workplaces. · Create sitting rooms for employees to rest and renew during the course of the working day and encourage them to take regular breaks.
The kind of company I have in mind would nurture the employee friendly environment if they could:
· Offer a well-equipped gym and other facilities where employees can work-out and stay fit. Do not see fun, humor and relaxation as the enemies of hard work; instead perceive them as its allies.
· Commit to paying every member a living wage. And that largely depends on the standard of living. Many
· Describe clear and specific expectations for what victory
20
December 2017
Workodynamics
looks like in any given job. Then, try to give your employees as much liberation as possible to choose when they work, where they do their work, and how best to conclude it. · Organize two-way performance reviews, so that employees not only receive regular feedback about how they’re doing, in means that support their growth, but are also given the opportunity to provide feedback to their supervisors, anonymously if they would, to avoid recrimination. · Advice leaders and managers to be responsible for treating all employees with respect and care and encourage them to regularly identify those they supervise for the progressive contributions they make. · Make policies that encourage employees to allot a considerable amount of time, to focus without disruption on their most important urgencies, including long-term projects with planned and creative thinking. Preferably, give them time to pursue projects they’re particularly passionate about and which have the potential to add value to the company.
December 2017
· Offer employees opportunities and incentives to learn, develop and grow, both in forming new job-specific hard skills, as well as softer skills that serve them well as individuals, and as executives and leaders. Actively encourage volunteerism among the employees. · Stand for something beyond just increasing profits. Provide services or create products or serve causes that openly add value in the society, so that employees could derive a sense of meaning from their work, and would feel good about companies they work for. Life, as the famous philosopher Hobbes so succinctly pointed out, can be solitary, brutish, nasty and short. If we spend about one-third of our lives working, don’t you want it to be less miserable? It’s not that easy as it is said to be. But some companies are admirably close, and others are to be applauded for their valued efforts. The one that comes closest is Google. I’m convinced it’s one of their key to success.
21
The Power of
Converged Solutions
Thomas Beck Director of Marketing & Business Development Teo Technologies
22
December 2017
Expert’s Viewpoint
F
or years experts and analysts have predicted, pushed, and prodded businesses to a future of unified communications. Their claim was that in a world where all of our technologies and tools to communicate were truly integrated, there would be a transformative improvement in efficiency and work life balance. However, our world today feels less unified than ever before. It seems as if every day (or even every hour) brings a new stand-alone business application designed to supercharge productivity. The problem is that very few of these apps truly work together, and very few business users derive the same benefit from each. Thus, we have actually created a new world of “dis-unification.” Where there is pain, there is promise.
Within our current situation there does lie the potential that inter application APIs can be leveraged so that different apps can work together, each user can choose the app of their choice, and in the end everything will be unified again. This IS a technical possibility. However, in reality the competing business interests of different application developers stands in the way of seamless and reliable integrations. Often times even apps that could be integrated have their interface capabilities turned off or removed for business reasons. Further adding to this complexity, many company acquisitions can lead to capabilities being disabled in the best business interests of the new owners. Where to Turn? There are many paths businesses can take in light of these realities. Some choose to grin and bear the current situation. Some choose to build solutions of their own. Some attempt to select a handful of key suppliers to partner with, and build a tightly coupled ecosystem they hope will stand the test of time. And still others keep looking for the perfect solution that might not exist yet, that could be just around the corner, not realizing that by choosing inaction they run the very real risk of falling behind. The Application Monopoly Game via M&A Through aggressive merger and acquisition (M&A) activities, many organizations are looking to rope together impressive collections of complementary applications. These apps are intended to attract businesses looking to garner a wide assortment of functionality from a single vender, or at least from a smaller collection of vendors. A troubling component of this approach though, is that many of the vendors with the largest application collections also have the least business interest in allowing competing applications to integrate well. What about Telco? Most business application developers are lacking the capabilities (and the understanding) to integrate complex PSTN services into more advanced applications. Even traditional phone service companies struggle here, and appear to have little or no path to the future for deploying more advanced capabilities via their dated and bloated infrastructures. They rely on two primary vendors, Metaswitch and Broadsoft, who both have critical billing system integration capabilities with the legacy carriers, but lack more advanced applications. So, where are businesses to turn for truly integrated unified communications solutions?
December 2017
23
Never Give Up While the needs are complex, and the more well-known vendors to choose from are lacking in key ways, all hope is not lost. There is a new breed of solution provider, one that possesses the pedigree of PSTN service integration, and also the next gen application integration capabilities that traditional providers lack. These new solution providers are able to deliver truly integrated uniďŹ ed communications, call center, contact center, and analytics solutions in a single platform, providing not only a huge array of capabilities, readily customizable for each customer, but also built to integrate with other vendors' solutions. These solution providers have engineered and designed for the demands of the modern business, and they are the ones to watch. While they may not be household names today, they are the forward-thinking partners that innovative organizations turn to when taking their next strategic leap in their business success.
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December 2017
www.emirates.com
ReviewStudio: Reinventing the Collaborative Platform for Creative Review
Stuart Feldman
Co-founder & President
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We continue our mission of providing creative teams the best tools possible to help them collaborate more effectively and realize the full potential of their creative efforts
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hen it comes to creative review, consistency is the key. Yet, even today, many creative agencies and production studios use a mixed bag of solutions to manage workflows, consolidate feedback and facilitate approvals of their digital media projects. This can be a nightmare for project-related communication – making delays, inefficient workflows and budget overruns all too common. Canadian company ReviewStudio offers a real-time, mobile-friendly collaborative platform for creative project groups to share, markup and approve digital content including videos, images, and PDF files. Unlike most generic project management applications, the tool offers a unique “media-centric” approach that presents all project communications and management tasks directly in the context of the media being produced. ReviewStudio develops services and software tools for marketing, education and creative teams who need a faster and easier way to view and review comments on their digital media projects. ReviewStudio offers a visual and collaborative approach to collecting and consolidating feedback and approvals, keeping everyone on the same page throughout the course of a project. Their clients come from a wide variety of creative disciplines – including marketing, digital production, videography and photography, design, and education. ReviewStudio gives them innovative tools to collaborate effectively and realize the full potential of their creative efforts. An Enthusiastic Frontrunner Stuart Feldman is a Co-founder and President of ReviewStudio. With a background in both the fields of architecture and computer graphics, Stuart started his career as a co-founder of Lightscape Technologies, a pioneering 3D visualization software that gave architects and designers the ability to accurately visualize, analyze and present their virtual 3D projects under real-world lighting conditions.
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After the acquisition of Lightscape by Autodesk, Stuart became a senior
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project manager at Autodesk for design visualization software and later managed a project to extend the availability of 3D tools (“Virtual Photography”) to marketing professionals. Through his roles at Lightscape and Autodesk, Stuart developed close relationships with many design, production and advertising agencies and became very familiar with the specific workflow issues in coordination and collaboration that all these organizations were dealing with.
is that supports both the independent and synchronized collaborative review of digital media. Independent reviews allow clients or collaborators in different locations or time zones to view content and provide feedback independently at their convenience. benefits include:
Synchronized reviews allow teams to work together from remote Ÿ Simplicity: An easy-to-use, nonlocations to brainstorm or discuss technical markup tool that lets various aspects of a project in live realcollaborators and clients time review sessions. A team member immediately review, markup and can synchronize the playback of a approve a wide range of digital slide-show or video with any number media files from any web browser or of online participants and stop on any Born of Necessity mobile device. Users have no need to frame to discuss and markup the ReviewStudio began as a project to purchase, install or learn specialized content together. help the art production staff of a major tools or software to provide clear and motion picture address their challenges effective feedback. and get timely feedback and approvals This combination of independent Ÿ Agility: Accelerated design and from multiple stakeholders spread review and real-time conferencing production cycles through across three continents. Poor makes ReviewStudio particularly wellcentralized content display and communication and a lack of effective suited for the iterative and markups. Collaborative threaded collaboration were having a severe collaborative nature of creative project discussions help avoid multiple impact on their production schedules workflows. iterations by centralizing feedback and budget. In response, the from all project collaborators. An ReviewStudio team developed a Upcoming Endeavors integrated version tracker makes it simple, web-based solution for In the coming year, ReviewStudio is easy to follow and compare the uploading, sharing and reviewing extending their project management progress of a project from early digital comps – significantly workflows to facilitate their adoption design to finished deliverable. streamlining the review and approval by educational institutions and Ÿ Dialogue: Project team members can agencies working with large numbers cycles. hold live online review presentations of clients and projects. They are also where all collaborators can view, Since that initial solution, the focusing on their APIs and integrations discuss and markup content together. with popular project and asset ReviewStudio team has continued This functionality helps to resolve engaging and collaborating closely management platforms while issues faster and avoid with clients to address their needs. “We extending their support for emerging communication errors. have now expanded,” notes Stuart, “to media formats such as immersive 360 Ÿ Reference: The platform maintains a images and videos. address a much broader range of complete, searchable record of all creative workflows in advertising, film content-related communications and Stuart attributes ReviewStudio’s and video production, education, and activities that take place over the publishing.” success to its team’s extensive course of project development. This experience in the creative production helps team members stay organized An Emerging Leader in Creative environment and deep understanding and avoid conflicts by providing a Project Management of client workflows. He concludes, “We verifiable audit trail of all review ReviewStudio’s innovative approach to are very engaged with our clients and activities. media-centric project management see the ongoing development of helps creative teams deliver their ReviewStudio itself a highly engaged Unique Methodology is the Key projects on time and on budget. Some and collaborative effort to meet their ReviewStudio’s distinctive advantage of its most important features and needs and goals.” December 2017
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oday, no matter what services or products it provides, every company is a technology company. The companies that shape our world truthfully embrace this fact.
Today, no company can make, deliver or market its product competently without the help of technology. While the Internet and smart phones used to be cutting edge, these days, new application release dates and time to market for new technologies are dwindling. Companies which are habituated to a four-year release cycle are forced to adapt to these changes faster. Businesses must learn how to incorporate release cycles of the technology into their production and service cycles. Companies that are keen towards adapting these new technologies quickly gain a foothold on the market. Following are some insights on how you can embrace technological advancements and ways they affect your business and customers. Perceive Technology as a vital aspect of company culture, not an addendum For companies to efficaciously make the changeover and become a technology company, cultures need to be altered to take into
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account the unique way that software development works and to highlight the importance of technology and the people who manage and build it. The engineers and innovators need to work towards it. It is important to keep in mind that building a technology-driven culture is not just about free lunches and massages. The most important and scarcest commodity for developers is the uninterrupted ‘time’ to concentrate. So emphasize on providing techexperts a private space or ‘work-from-home’ facilities and not the Ping-Pong tables, lounges, fire pits or chocolate fountains. Companies need to adopt agile practices progressively The pace of adopting new technologies has become faster over the years. For example, previously it took decades for telephones and electricity to reach 50% of US households, but today it only takes a few years or even less time for new technologies like smartphones and tablets to influence a majority of the population. This accentuates the importance for companies to continuously adopt new technologies that can improve the productivity and also to constantly experiment with these emerging technologies that have the potential to be disruptive to the business.
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In this age of technology, where the world is moving towards cloud computing and other advancements in that genre, continuous development and continuous updates are the name of the game. Agile practices involve adaptive planning, evolutionary development, continuous improvement and early delivery. It enables you to continuously deliver better experiences for your customers encouraging rapid and flexible response to change. Companies need to look forward and avoid getting caught in the innovator’s dilemma The chief reason for why legacy competitors, despite of doing everything “right,” fail, and that becomes is the force of disruptive innovation as described in Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma. Businesses tend to reject innovations based on customers’ existing needs, while innovative upstarts develop products in a way that meets the customers’future necessities. It has been evident recently that automakers take very innovative approaches to automotive technology as autonomous vehicles move viciously in the startup world with the acquisitions of corporations like Otto, Cruise and public pilots of new technological expertise like Uber’s self-driving cars or Tesla’s Autopilot feature. An automobile giant, Ford particularly, has been very focused on the autonomous future and the importance of being remarkable by working disparately in today’s fast-paced technology-driven world. Ford’s CEO, Mark Fields, has written that “As little as four years ago, our approach was aligned with the thinking of most automakers today, which is taking incremental steps to achieve full autonomy by advancing driver assist technology. This is not how we look at it today. We learned that to achieve full autonomy, we’d have to take a completely different pathway.” Apprehend how technology is affecting your business Initially, leaders must recognize how technology affects their business. This doesn’t constrain to one idea for a new app or website. It means categorically understanding of how technology organically flows through the business. Synthesize how advancements in mobile solutions, cloud computing, extreme customer segmentation and connectivity are all impacting the business. Perceive the decreasing cost, increasing functionality, changing customer base and social impact of the company as and when you move within the changing age of technology. The employees, hardware, software and data must all flow together in harmony to produce results within the business. Since, technology is a wave; you can either ride along, or be wiped along. Appreciate how technology affects your customers Furthermore, leaders must understand how technology, apart from affecting their businesses, is also affecting their customers. Company leaders have to strategically design business plans, based on how customers adapt and use their technology. Previously, as a company you would have to set the intervals in which you were open for business, and customers had to put up with it and adjust without that particular product. Now, technology has completely changed that, with the introduction of e-commerce and mobile phones, customers can access products at any time. They have outstretched expectations on what is an acceptable customer service and what is not. As a business, you have to keep up with the changing consumer behavior or be out of business. Conclusion The competition to become a market leader across variety of subdivisions and geographies is getting fierce amongst older incumbents and the promising, young startups. Startups have a lot to learn from the financial practices and established management of incumbents, but incumbents also have a lot to learn from startups as well. The companies, young or old, that use technology to its best, while creating competitive advantages for themselves, will certainly win. Technology needs to be a fundamental trait of the company’s DNA and culture as companies truly internalize that “Every company is a technology company”.
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SilexPro: Enhancing Group Collaboration through Innovation
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Ronald Hajj Founder & CEO
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We do not just follow
the trends; we have the courage
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to SET the trends
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he Internet and social media have brought international networking into the reach of small businesses. Moreover, live visual communications are possible using not just PCs but also smartphones and other mobile devices. This rapid evolution of collaboration technology is ushering in a next-generation of workplace that is more productive and efficient, and delivers significant cost savings to organizations across the globe. One of the forerunners of this burgeoning field of technology is SilexPro. SilexPro creates and develops a range of digital platforms to help its clients embrace and fully utilize the communications environment of the future. A Futuristic Leader Ronald Hajj is the veteran leader, CEO and Founder of SilexPro. He invented and patented the Center of Table (CoT) concept for natural collaboration that is at the core of the company's communication products. Under his leadership, the great team at SilexPro, has invented the revolutionary Silex PTE range that is transforming group communication as we know it. Ronald strongly believes in creativity and says, “People should dream and extend their imagination and creativity beyond traditional boundaries to create the required positive force which inspires innovation.” He started his company with a mission to enhance the way people communicate and collaborate remotely over video, and to make group video meetings more natural, more enjoyable and more productive. Ronald asserts, “'Innovation beyond imagination’ is the mindset by which we will positively disrupt and change the way people collaborate!” SilexPro’s Innovative Range of Products New technologies such as WebRTC and standard wireless display protocols are changing the very basics of group collaboration. Soft/web/cloud-based video clients are taking over December 2017
one Center of Table concept.
legacy video conferencing systems, and customers are looking for easy all-in-one solutions to deploy. To align with this market transformation, SilexPro has created a new generation of uniquely-designed CoT endpoints. Two products, Silex PTE Trio and Silex PTE Quattro, not only fit seamlessly with the new market trends but also fix many of the inherited discomforts and challenges of traditional meeting rooms.
Silex PTE Quattro collaboration system Ÿ Intelligent 360-degree voice tracking Ÿ Wireless presentation system based
on market standards like Miracast, An Exceptional Group Collaboration Ÿ Airplay and Intel WiDi. Experience Ÿ One button session recording SilexPro is a technology innovator in the field of visual communication and Technology Coupled with Ease of group collaboration. Their Center of Mind for our Clients Table (CoT) concept has drastically Ronald says, “Customers who do changed the traditional group business with us like the technology communication experience. revolution we provide and the cuttingedge advantages we offer, be it with the The organization is vigorously Silex PTE Center of Table solutions or promoting the ‘Silex PTE series’ which with the customized Smart conference is a range of agnostic all-in-one CoT rooms solutions.” visual collaboration systems. SilexPro wants to combine innovation, SilexPro emphasizes on the integral technology, and elegance to create an elements of their system which deliver unparalleled meeting experience, enhanced service availability, quality, virtually involving all the senses. and cost-effectiveness. SilexPro's customers benefit from its advanced Transforming the Traditional Video replacement plan which covers all Conference hardware defects and failures. The Silex PTE video agnostic systems offer a single hardware base for all Silex PTE is based on the Windows 10 platforms and are currently the only Pro OS, so there is no need of devices that provide a truly natural specially-trained staff for periodic group collaboration experience. maintenance and checkups. As long as the systems are covered by a service The Silex PTE new generation contract, updates and upgrades can be endpoints were created from scratch to automatically performed to maintain include: optimal performance levels. Remote Ÿ Multiple interactive touch screens troubleshooting sessions can be easily providing a seamless, multi-sided scheduled on the PTE systems. white-boarding experience and exceptional viewing. Using Center of Table Concept to Ÿ Multiple (3 or 4) cameras for 360Stand Apart degree coverage of the room from SilexPro is the first company that dared the Center of Table to defy the traditional ways of Ÿ Central speakerphone for radially conducting video meetings by symmetrical audio coverage introducing its disruptive, true all-inDecember 2017
SilexPro believes that CoT meetings are more natural and that having the remote participant appear in the center of gravity of the meeting (which is the center of the table) promotes engagement. It opens up different ways of visual communication and SilexPro is proud to be the first and only company providing this innovative solution today. Having an Edge in the Marketplace SilexPro has introduced luxury designs and integrated customized full-fledged smart conference rooms. It has established a new generation of visual collaboration endpoints that take into consideration current market trends. Their extensive experience gives them an edge when creating their own advanced solutions which combine and exploit technology already available in the market. Upcoming Endeavors SilexPro was the first company to introduce natural voice commands in its collaboration systems, and it recently also introduced Intelligent 360-degree voice tracking, one of the most effectual voice tracking systems in the market. They recently came up with a nice idea to completely hide the PTE system inside the table when the system is not used, using a special motorized lift for this purpose. The organization also has plans to release a new compact Quattro version for smaller huddle rooms. Additionally, SilexPro will soon enhance the collaboration experience for users on the move with the new Silex mobile series that will greatly enhance the way people collaborate on the move.
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Implications of Workload Management in
Hybrid and Multi-Cloud W
ith the evolving scenario in Cloud computing everchanging, there are numerous cloud service providers in the market offering variety of services and newer capabilities. The resultant is the impending growth in hybrid / multi-cloud architectures, fueled typical choices of organizations opting for the best of breeds in the cloud to meet their overall needs. This is also bringing out the inevitable challenges of multiple ‘cloud silos’, faced by these enterprises while adopting the hybrid / multi-cloud infrastructures and reaping its benefits. Here we discuss few typical challenges faced by organizations while managing workloads across ‘cloud silos’ in typical hybrid / multi-cloud deployments. Cloud native lock-in for workload provisioning and migration There are very specific interfaces to mange and provision of workloads with the cloud service providers, leading to tightly coupled workload provisioning engines. This creates challenges to seamlessly provision and migrate workloads across multiple clouds and embrace diverse cloud providers. An efficient approach to this challenge is to isolate the workload provisioning and migrations from the cloud-native workload management interfaces and make it void for the fundamentals of cloud. Fragmented outlook to resources across clouds The storage resources and compute of a particular cloud is usually leveraged and viewed independently of the resource pools in other clouds. This eventually leads to scaling, disconnected scheduling and monitoring of workloads across clouds, which also creates significant operational overhead. An optional way of handling this to create a single viewpoint approach into your resource pools, in order to optimally
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Cloud Management
manage the workloads across the basement, public and the private clouds. This approach offers a general view of the available and utilized resources which will generate the ideal workload scheduling and scaling. Utilization of Cloud resources Workloads are sometimes strategically deployed on pre-determined hosts and VMs in the cloud which creates static compute and storage partitions. This leads to sprawling of the ďŹ nest VMs and hosts. These static partitions create barriers to run mixed workloads which leads to sub-optimal usage of resources. One solution for this can be is to create a shared resource pool across multiple clouds and dynamically allocate resources to the respective workloads based on policies and changing needs. This will enable optimal execution of mixed workloads and eliminate static partitioning.
Inability to automatic assigning across clouds Workloads related to cloud are usually very resilient across the cloud, which automatically recovers in case of a failure. However, there might be some complications with the workload when a particular cloud is inaccessible due to site disasters, planned and unplanned cloud outages. A recommended way to tackle this glitch is to setup a distributed system which can detect failures/outages in a particular cloud, and then automatically failover the workload to a different cloud. Obstruction in development and performance for distributed workloads Distributed workloads are usually deployed across wide geographies leveraging multiple clouds.These workloads tend to use public internet while communicating and exchanging data between clouds, leading to unpredictable latency causing slow performance. Using Platform Equinix capabilities you can enable private low-latency connections across cloud so as to improve performance. December 2017
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Wildix:
Steve Osler CEO
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Unlike other solutions available in the market, Wildix offers a complete range of Hardware products and Unified Communications & Collaboration features
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Providing Browser Based Unified Communications and VOIP PBX
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eadquartered in Trento, Italy, Wildix is a multinational company which develops browserbased Unified Communication solutions and VoIP products. The organization completely relies upon the network of certified business partners, who install Wildix system in Europe and in the United States. In 2005, the company formed its Research and Development center in Ukraine. Wildix solution is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, between 50 and 2500 users which need to provide their employees with efficient yet simple to use communication tools that enable internal and external collaboration capability. Wildix system was designed to be easy to install and to manage, with low maintenance costs. Wildix system is a complete and scalable solution for companies that need to upgrade their communication tools by introducing advanced features such as videoconferencing, chat, SMS, user presence and geo location mapping, and at the same time, improve productivity and reduce operating costs. As a whole, the company is constantly looking ahead at new technologies and how it can best utilize them its product line.
December 2017
“Technology is only improving and expanding, and it is essential that we do the same,” mentions Steve Osler.
A Unique Organization that Provides Unique Services
Wildix’s go-to-market strategy is completely centered on a high-touch, high-value channel model. Steve Osler, CEO of Wildix, has Organizations’ value the partner always had an inherent love for relationship, and as a vendor it technology. His parents brought him provides a complete roadmap to his first computer at the tender age of success that provides all the necessary eleven, prompting him to become an tools for them to succeed. Wildix never information technology enthusiast. sells hardware through distribution; its Later on, he received a degree in pricing and licensing is simple and Computer Science from Padua easy to understand, with no hidden University, and started to work on costs underneath. The company software development and analysis in delivers higher margin and revenues the field of human-machine interaction. for its partners because it provides an Since then, he went on to Co-Found exclusive and direct partnership. StarSystem, which offered software Additionally, Wildix partners also services to businesses, in 1998. enjoy additional benefits such as free tech support, software assurance and a Later in 2002, while drinking Guinness 5-year out of the box warranty for all the equipment. In addition to technical with his brother, Steve and his brother training, Wildix provides sales training started fantasizing about starting a business together. Steve loved the taste and marketing support and assistance to partners, as marketing their business of Guinness, Irish dry stout, and shouldn’t be a seemingly impossible admired the fact that its specific taste can be recognized among hundreds. He task. thought, “This is the winning factor; to stand out from the crowd, to be unique, Tackling Bad Patches and to distinguish one’s self.” Fast-forward Competitors to 2005, along with his brother, Steve Wildix began as a simple conversation started to work on the development of back in 2002 and, till date, the journey a new communication system and has definitely been on the fun side for dedicated himself to the project management activities, for what is now the company. However, there were some initial struggles, as is the case known as Wildix - with the shared with any other company. One of the vision to stand out from the crowd, to struggles was trying to convince a car be unique, and to distinguish repair shop to place Wildix’s PBX themselves from others. boxes into their paint kiln, so that the blue paint would adhere. An Enthusiastic CEO
engineers, and opening an office in Odessa. Or, researching browser communication capabilities, and as a result, becoming the first in the world to develop WebRTC; working with the team of developers from Global IP Solutions that developed WebRTC, before Google’s acquisition. Eventually, all these experiences shaped Wildix as a resilient, forward thinking, and innovative organization. According to the organization, Architecture and Design is of optimum significance. Unlike the solutions available in the market, Wildix offers its own complete range of Integrated Hardware products & Unified Communications and Collaboration features, which work together seamlessly. Wildix is quite different from its competitors because its design philosophy is simple:
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Make it: “Simple” – Every feature is delivered in a Single Intuitive Web Interface and smartphone apps, while removing the complexity.
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Make it: “Secure by Design” Security must be inherent at every touch point. SBC and VPN are not secure. More attacks come from the inside.
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Make it: “Relevant” Communications has switched from telephony to the web, so we must be able to connect them on the web.
However, among all these struggles, there were some exciting times; which included hearing about the tremendous engineering talent hidden in Ukraine and flying over in 2005, hiring
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Light your Own way