Find me. If you can.

I now know why the term 'find-me/follow-me' meant so little to the friends I used it with 3-4 years back. At the time, it seemed like such an intuitive term - in itself somewhat of an anomaly in technology. Afterall, 'find me' or 'follow-me', what's not to get. And as a telecom person, I had heard the term for so long myself that I just figured people knew it. Not so. Call forwarding seemed to work, but for me, didn't really do the package justice.

Fast forward to now where everyone is being found or followed. The proliferation of personal, web-based telephony applications like GrandCentral, Ifbyphone and GotVMail have certainly helped. Or at least done what their predecessors - over-featured key systems - perhaps couldn't.

Forward even faster and like we see so often, as soon as the masses start to 'get' something, we change the game. The beauty of Find Me apps is that when properly managed, they do just that. They take the finding and following out of the equation for the caller. But there's a hitch. The call receiver has to program and then intermittently manage the application. Garbage in, garbage out. Don't tell your assistant where you'll be at five, they probably won't find you. Neither will your phone.

Enter presence-based find me solutions. These come in a few flavors. There are those where you can log in and out so the application knows which 'rules' to follow. And now there's 'touch' based presence. Haven't typed on your Mac (or PC) in a while, your phone will figure you're away and your find me rules will kick in. Fonality introduced this feature this week and others have it. Just don't expect your friends to understand it for a while....

Small business telephony. Feature overkill?

In 2005 I had the good fortune to work at length with GotVMail, a now very well established player in the Virtual PBX arena. And since then, several other entrants into the broader SMB/telephony space. Yet, it never ceases to surprise me when I get word of the latest start-up joining the same fray.

Among many in just the last few months, Ramon Ray over at SmallBizTechnology profiles Toktumi and SIPJunction this week. The former is the latest in companies attacking this space by using the PC on everyone's desk as leverage, while the latter is a VoIP twist on a virtual PBX (hosted). Both offer a robust set of features. The question is, though, no longer whether there are enough features to choose from or even whether the price point works (the GotVMails of the world have proven those points); it's more a function of whether enough small businesses are in fact sophisticated enough to take advantage of the these packaged services.

We're past early adopters now in this market (I think), which means those buying for the first time will want brand and ease of product ramp. The first one - the spots are taken. The second - well that's where new entrants have their best shot. Yet even that does not make for a slam dunk. My friends at Telephony2 have what is easily the most user friendly product on the market, but they would surely be happy to be selling more of it.

Don't get me wrong. I am huge fan of almost all of these new players. Sooner or later, the good ones will get absorbed by the huge small business market. It may just take time - not something all start-ups have the luxury of.

As for GotVMail, they have stuck closely to their plan. Deliver a consistent experience, market aggressively and worry less about adding new fancy features their customers will never use. The plan is working.

GotVMail Gets Going - Inc. 500

A quick congratulations to my friends (and recent clients) over at GotVMail. Inc. 500 announced their Fastest Growing list and GotVMail landed at 66. Not bad for a couple of twenty-somethings in Boston. Having been around them, I can tell you that they have earned it.

In these times of 'Unified-this' and 'VoIP-that', GotVMail has stuck to the basics in chasing the small business prize. Simple, easy-to-buy, easy-to-use services that deliver an immediate and tangible impact on the customer's business. For a very small business, sounding big can mean more than most people think.

The virtual pbx space is a very crowded one but somehow, GotVMail has managed to stay way above the fold. Nice going.