Collaboration: It’s About Competing

Dan Alldis, future technologies manager at global sat comms manufacture Inmarsat, will be speaking in the AVIXA Unified Communications Solutions Theatre (sponsored by Creston) tomorrow. His message? Enterprises must create more dynamic, creative and collaborative work spaces. 

Ian McMurry finds out more … The numbers of end-users coming through the doors of ISE is increasing year on year, as a result of very conscious plan on the part of ISE managing director Mike Blackman and his team. As he visits ISE for the second time, Dan Alldis is, in that respect, increasingly typical.

“This year, we are particularly interested in the new display screen technologies, especially OLED and maybe Samsung’s ‘wall’” he says. “As iMPACT!, recommended and deployed by MBA IT, grows, we are looking to improve our display screen solutions to get the most out of Oblongs Mezzanine technology, which powers the space, and the content we show. Mezzanine was the only solution with the flexibility to help realise our vision for the iMPACT! Room.

Alldis explains that iMPACT! Is the space Inmarsat uses to bring its VIP customers into, with the aim of wowing them and showing them what Inmarsat does, how it can solve their problems and mot importantly, differentiate the company from its competitors.

Adapting the experience

“Our technology partners come to discuss how we can make training easier, and how we can show their terminals and solutions in innovative ways”, Aldis continues. “Our distribution partners come in with customers to demonstrate our complex solutions through scenarios, and we often get real end users in to understand how they can use the kit more effectively and where our technology roadmap is headed.”

“Our end users could be anyone from the European Space Agency to senior officials from government or defence, as well as humanitarian specialists who deploy around the world, requiring global mobile connectivity,” he adds.

“The groups we get in are diverse and that’s where Mezzanine comes into its own – allowing us to tailor content and adapt the experience for every audience.”

“We show everything from high impact videos through to custom built scenarios, showing our complex solution in an easy to understand, attractive, graphical/visual way.” Alldis says.

Inmarsat has linked Oblong’s Mezzanine with its corporate VTC solution, meaning that the company is now capable of bringing anyone from its remote offices into the conversation. Infopresence hasn’t particularly been utilised to date, Alldis says, but he believe it will, provide a fantastic way of linking other Mezzanine spaces in the future.

Alldis concludes: “Collaboration technology has become more than a tool to facilitate communication: it is now about competitive advantage”

Dan Alldis will be talking to Mary Ann de Lares Norris, Oblong Industries ‘ VP, EMEA at ‘Driving innovation and creating impact at Inmarsat; the workplace of the future’ at 10:30 tomorrow in the Unified Communications Solutions Theatre, Stand 11-A170