Founded in 2005, DiVitas Networks has rapidly become a leader in Mobile Unified Communications. DiVitas offers the first solution to mobilize corporate voice and messaging (desk phone, contacts, IM, presence and push-to-talk) applications for business by unifying them onto a smartphone. DiVitas “seamless roaming’” enables its solution to operate transparently over any mobile network—WiFi, cellular, or both. DiVitas does all of this while allowing company IT to retain complete control over its mobile solution. DiVitas provides IT the ability to customize features and implement policies while selecting the PBX, network, handsets and service plans that best meet their needs.

Here is our conversation with ATG Srinivas, Vice President of Engineering.

Microsoft Startup Zone: Why and when did you first choose the Microsoft platform?

ATG Srinivas: We were founded in 2005. Right from the start, we realized that dual-mode phones are key to the success of our solution. Microsoft was the first platform to come out with dual-mode phone support, and the penetration that Microsoft now has in North America and in Asia-Pacific is significant. As a pioneer in the converged mobile market, we chose to support Microsoft technologies because of the ubiquity of the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform for dual-mode pocket PCs. In addition, solutions from Microsoft offer key development tools and are supported by the leading handset manufacturers around the world.

MSUZ: We understand that you were using a number of key Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Live Communications Server 2005, and providing support for Microsoft XP Professional and Windows Mobile, can you elaborate on this?

Srinivas: When we start development on a mobile platform, the most critical things to consider are the underlying platform development tools and the platform itself. It is a little different from development projects where people are much more focused on a particular technology like .NET or Windows Media or Silverlight. For us, what Microsoft brings to the table is an extremely well documented platform layer, which supports telephony, socket layer, and connection manager. The speed of the development is a key aspect of this platform for us. Tools such as Visual Studio are extremely important.

We are trying to mobilize enterprise applications (deskphone, IM, Contacts and presence) on smartphones. For that to happen, there are two things that are important. First, the penetration of the platform into business accounts; and second, how well does the platform integrate with the rest of the business applications. The beauty of Microsoft is that a lot of people are already familiar with Calendar, Outlook, and all that comes integrated into the platform itself. For us, having access to things like contacts, calendars and email is extremely important. So to summarize, the key advantages of using Microsoft technologies are speed to market and the wealth of information that is available for development.

MSUZ: What other Microsoft technologies have you looked at?

Srinivas: One of the latest things that we plan to use is the Mobile Device Manager. This gives us the capability of remote management of devices. For a mobile platform, which is business controlled, this is a key aspect. In the future, we are also looking at .NET and we have something in the plan for Office Communications Server.

MSUZ: Anything that Microsoft could do to help you more with technology solution?

Srinivas: Yes, definitely. Since we are a phone application on top of a mobile device, we would like much closer integration with the lower layers, as well as the telephony stack and WiFi stack. It would be extremely useful for us to get access into those layers from the API perspective, and also technical support in terms of issues that we face. We are a mobile application and because of that there is a lot of emotion attached to it by the end user, and the closer and more seamlessly that we work with the native platform, the better the user experience is.

ATG Srinivas' Background

Prior to DiVitas, Srinivas spent 12 years working for startups in networking and telecommunications including Sycamore Networks and Cascade Communications. At Sycamore, he was part of the core team that developed Sycamore’s first optical switch. Srinivas also led Sycamore’s Network Management Systems group. Previously, he was a consultant with Infosys where he led several projects for Cascade Communications. He graduated from IIT Kanpur, India with a Bachelors of Technology.

For more information, visit Divitas online, or read the success story "DiVitas ‘Unwires’ the Enterprise."