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Get Smart with FaceTime

By
Sarah Carter
 on June 7, 2010 10:39 AM | | Comments (0)
Kailash Ambwani is FaceTime's CEO and President: 

Today is an interesting and memorable day for FaceTime.  Earlier, Apple introduced their next generation iPhone and announced that it will use "FaceTime"  as the trademark for its new video calling application. 

 

I'm intrigued with the way that the use of the term "facetime" has evolved since we named our company about a decade ago.  Ten years ago, our solutions were for Instant Messaging and other "virtual facetime" applications of that ilk.  Now, "facetime" will refer to an application that enables callers to see one another, while using a mobile device and that makes me reflect on how far we've come.

 

Today's announcement echoes our long held belief that the Internet has changed - from one-way information delivery to two-way communication and collaboration. The New Internet is increasingly about communications, collaboration and communities - whether it's social networking, instant messaging or now video calling, users are increasingly bringing these tools into the workplace (if you didn't yet check out the results of our fifth annual survey - then you'll find some evidence of that here)

 

Our agreement with Apple to transfer the FaceTime trademark to them comes as we are rebranding our company to better reflect our capabilities.  From our virtual facetime beginnings 10 years ago, our solutions have continued to evolve and renaming our company will better reflect how we help enterprises leverage new communication in a secure and compliant manner.

 

So, it's an exciting day.  When I look around at these new communications tools - like a video calling application on a phone -I'm reminded of the old TV shows (I want no comments or jokes about my age...) with secret agents running around with video watches tracking down the bad guys.  It's amazing what we can now do.  I guess shoe phones and the cone of silence aren't too far away. 


Good thing our company will be there to keep the networks and the data secure and compliant.

Farewell old friend. Its time for the next generation.

By
Sarah Carter
 on March 29, 2010 3:05 AM | | Comments (0)

The drive to extend collaboration outside of our own network boundaries has never been so strong.  Whether our drivers are to save cost, a geographically challenged work force, a diverse supply chain network or reduce time to market - we're all looking to collaborate and communicate with individuals who don't necessarily adhere to the same security, management and compliance controls that you have on your network.

 

And we're using a variety of tools, I hesitate to admit to how many different applications I use to communicate, not just internally here at FaceTime, but with suppliers around the world, our channel and strategic partners, prospects and customers.  It's probably a good exercise actually to think about that right now.

 

My real time communications tools:

 

 

Wow.  There's a wonder I ever get any work done with that little lot eh?

 

But I'm not unique.  It's representative of the world in which we work now - that enterprise deployed Unified Communications platforms, like OCS and Sametime are co-existing alongside those Web 2.0 tools that I installed myself - because - well because that's how I communicate with different folks around the world.

 

The need to secure and manage the whole picture has never been stronger either. The same risks apply in our 2.0 world as always did in a 1.0 world - so whether your bugbear is inbound threats, outbound data leakage and managing your errant employees - all these areas require consideration.  I guess the only problem is that in a 2.0 real time world - the issue becomes apparent, well, in real time.

 

Compliance too affects real time communications.  Regulatory bodies, from the SEC, FINRA, HIPAA to the Financial Services Authority have all issued guidelines and rules on use and retention of real time communications - they are, after all, simple electronic communications, and subject to the same regulation - AND LEGISLATION - that your email is.

 

If you want to take a look at just how much growth there has been in the usage of real time communications tools and how prepared the average organization is to deal with security, management and compliance issues- take a look at the results of FaceTime's fifth annual survey - and compare it to what's going on in your organization.

 

Today, we launched Vantage, the successor to IMAuditor. 

 

IMAuditor - farewell old friend, but our world has moved well beyond pure IM and just auditing - Vantage heralds the new standard for security, management and compliance for real time and Unified Communications - giving you a vantage point, a view, visibility and control over all facets of real time and unified communications and the individual tools and capabilities in those platforms. Vantage also gives you a significant advantage - from managing OCS CAC, to controlling federation, non registered employees, logging Sametime announcements - and across the widest range of UC platforms and public IM networks which now includes Skype.

 

Why not take a look for yourself? - and bring your security, management and compliance for unified communications up to the new standard.


Sarah Carter, who can also be reached on old fashioned email:  scarter@facetime.com



Enterprises realizing the value of Social Networking

By
Kailash Ambwani
 on November 3, 2009 12:48 PM | | Comments (0)

I had an interesting meeting with a customer last week regarding the use of social networking. This is a large broker dealer with several thousand financial advisors across the country.


The IT department is getting pressure from the business users to allow the use of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all of which they currently block. When I asked them why the business units wanted access to these sites, they gave me three reasons:

  1. The financial advisors are telling them that referrals they get through Facebook and LinkedIn tend to convert to clients at a much higher rate than any other channel. This resonated with me - at FaceTime we constantly remind our salespeople to leverage their social networks for prospecting. It is well know that human beings are tribal by nature and are more likely to respond to someone who is "connected" to them in someway - even when you have millions of connections!
  2. Their marketing group is focused on the 35-45 year old demographic since this is where people hit the peak of their earning power and start thinking about financial planning. Getting clients in their late thirties means you can hang on to them 20-30 years. Turns out that the over-35 demographic is the fastest growing user group at Facebook and the largest segment for both LinkedIn and Twitter.
  3. Finally, the company is finding that their ability to recruit at college campuses and MBA schools is enhanced by their Facebook and Twitter presence. As we all know, college kids live with these technologies and businesses that block access are seen as old school.


I am hearing similar reasons from other customers across all industry groups. Enterprises are recognizing the power of social networking to recruit new customers, stay in touch with existing customers and enhance communication with their employee base.


Of course there are several challenges that need to be overcome. In a survey FaceTime conducted in June of this year, organizations identified their top three concerns as content leakage, regulatory and corporate compliance and reputation damage.

"I am not worried about the guy who wants to steal information" the IT manager at a large services firm said to me. "I am worried about mistakes. People don't realize that competitors can also see your status update on LinkedIn and if you're talking about working on a particular project, you've just told the world." The inadvertent leakage of content is a common concern among the security managers I speak with.

On the compliance front, regulatory authorities are increasingly focusing on the use of these networks within regulated industries such as financial services, energy and healthcare. For example, FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, recently formed a Social Networking Task Force to look into the compliance challenges posed by social networking sites.

Finra CEO Rick Ketchum said, at the SIFMA Annual Meeting "Social networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn provide new ways to connect, inform and interact with customers... They also raise new regulatory challenges. For example, as currently designed they may not allow you to archive and maintain the communications on your own books and records."

 

Reputation damage is another concern for large enterprises. How do you track what employees and customers are saying about your company? The CIO of an electric utility company noted that they used Twitter to communicate information about outages and other emergencies to their customer base. "I worry that a disgruntled employee or customer could hijack our Twitter account and start spreading misinformation".

 

Another customer, a large bank that ran into some problems integrating an acquisition, talked about how customers were blasting the bank on Facebook and Twitter. "Because we block the use of these sites within our company, we were caught off-guard and didn't understand how we should respond to these comments." The IT manager noted. "Our marketing group is now formulating a strategy on how to leverage these platforms. We need to be more savvy about these channels."

 

Notwithstanding the challenges, it is clear that enterprises recognize the value of these sites and are motivated to overcome them. (Shamefaced sales pitch follows) FaceTime recently announced USG 3.0 which is designed to address these challenges and allow enterprises to leverage the benefits of social networking.

 

I would be interested in hearing your views on the use of social networking in your business. Do you agree with the above reasons? Are there other reasons?

The Natural Progression of IMAuditor

By
Kailash Ambwani
 on July 15, 2008 10:30 PM | | Comments (0)

This week we announced a major update to IMAuditor. The most significant new capabilities are around data leak prevention, and it got me thinking about how our business has shifted over the past few years. 

 

FaceTime first introduced its IMAuditor software in 2001, half a lifetime ago in Internet terms. At the time, it became the standard by which banks monitored and recorded conversations their employees (mainly traders) were having over IM to comply with SEC regulations. Over the past seven years, we've refined and advanced the product to stay ahead of the changing Internet and changing employee behavior. Today, employees routinely communicate over social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, use Web-based file sharing sites like SlideShare and transfer information with P2P file sharing software such as LimeWire. That's the nature of the New Internet.

 

This also means that setting and enforcing policies for information is more complex than ever... hence, constant updates to IMAuditor. 

 

In parallel, it's been interesting to observe how my conversations with customers have changed over the past four years that I've been CEO of FaceTime. Foremost, our customer base itself has changed: from primarily financial services companies to large enterprises in general. And, the primary concern has shifted from regulatory compliance to security and integrity of enterprise data. Most interestingly, new triggers and pain points have emerged - from AIM to Facebook, from Napster to Skype.  As employees bring new Web 2.0 applications onto the enterprise network, protecting the organization against data leaks over these new channels is overtaking concern about incoming malware.

 

Something else is changing too: companies have started to realize that blocking these new Internet applications is not a solution. Especially in the case of IM, companies have seen the value of real-time communications and are rolling out unified communications suites like Microsoft OCS and IBM/Lotus/Sametime in an effort to realize these new productivity gains. And now, when savvy IT mangers discover that consumer-based applications like public IM or Facebook are in use on their networks, they realize that what they need is not a blocking mechanism but a good policy and some gentle reminders that help enforce it.

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying you should not trust your employees. But I've believed for some time that the biggest security threat to the organization doesn't come from the outside, it comes from the company's own employees. Not because people are malicious, but because people are people.

 

Last month, we commissioned Osterman Research to survey IT managers about their concerns for information leakage, as well as their preparedness to prevent it in their organizations. The most interesting data point for me is that more IT managers are concerned about unintentional or accidental information leaks than they are about intentional leaks or data loss from malware. Surprised?

Social Networking Goes to Work

By
Frank Cabri
 on April 7, 2008 12:01 PM | | Comments (1)

It appears that social networking is everywhere these days, and especially on the enterprise network.  We've unveiled an update to our Unified Security Gateway today, which allows IT managers to control, monitor and report on which applications employees are using within Facebook -  over 20,000 applications today. We truly believe that social networking can be a productive business tool, and customers are asking for help as they work to understand it and how to apply it to their business.

 

As the WSJ's Business Technology blog commented, some people are still skeptical of how social networking helps businesses.  I know I use LinkedIn as my key address book for professional contacts, and know I would be less productive without it.  How are you using social networking to do your job?   We've heard from customers in energy, pharmaceuticals and financials among others that their employees are using it - in some cases it's the HR teams to run informal background checks on new hire candidates.

 

We'll be asking some of these same questions to IT professional at the RSA conference and plan to report back here what we've learned.  Speaking of RSA, it didn't get off to a great start for attendees en route from Heathrow.  Our own Chris Boyd, Director of Malware Research at FaceTime, blogs and shares photos here on a terrifying flight.  Glad to report he's arrived safely in San Francisco.

 

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