Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: David Guthrie, CTO of PGi (Part 2)

SM: Point taken. But the products in the market also have very large user bases.

DG: Sure. So, did other wireless phones that you know about before the iPhone came out, before the Droid came out with their OSes that changed the way you interact with phones. But there were other phones like Samsung and Motorola that had very large market shares but less than desirable interfaces … and less than desirable user interfaces. So, we’re trying to follow the same path in the communication technology arena and change the way people interact with services.

SM: Does that translate into specific sales situations? Do you have customers who are moving from solutions like Webex to your solution?

DG: Absolutely we do. We deploy to large customers who may have Webex in their enterprises and are migrating some of our technologies or use our services that are built into Outlook, and they don’t have to leave Outlook to launch the service or innovate with our services or schedule in our services. We meet the users where they are.

SM: Can you talk about some large customers that are going through these migrations?

Sean: We would prefer to not talk about any specific customer examples.

DG: Yes, we would need to get their permission.

SM: Don’t you have a company of $500 million in revenue? You don’t have any customers that are referenceable? That’s kind of hard to believe.

Sean: Both of these new products have been launched within the last 12 months, and we’re in the process of scaling them.

SM: So, these are not products that are generating $500 million in revenue?

Sean: No.

SM: What generates the $500 million in revenue?

Sean: The majority of our revenue is still derived from our audio conferencing services. We have been in the market with our first-party software-as-a-service solutions over the course of last year, and we’ve been creating market awareness and adoption of those services over the last several months. Last week, we reported in our first quarter earnings that in the first year of sales, we’ve generated a $14 million revenue run rate from these new products.

SM: OK. So, in the first quarter, $14 million from the new set of video conferencing, online meeting solutions, yes?

Sean: That’s right, from our two products iMeet and GlobalMeet.

DG: And I guess from public PR statements that we’ve made about two customers, Qwest leverages our GlobalMeet service on the website, and Deutche Telekom leverages our iMeet service. So, those are two examples.

SM: Talk to me more about what you’re doing with Qwest and Deutche Telekom.

DG: Qwest, which merged with CenturyLink and is now under the CenturyLink name, leverages our Web conferencing product GlobalMeet. They resell our product, use it internally for all of their Web conferencing needs. It provides them with a very easy user experience, integration with Outlook, launch of Web meetings on the desktop and allows users and guest to join meetings without having to do any downloads. Deutche Telekom, we’re going to market with Deutche Telekom with our iMeet service for video meetings. Deutche Telekom is launching us, leveraging our application; we’re leveraging Deutche Telekom’s network.

SM: It sounds like Deutche Telekom is a new channel partner. Is Qwest generating revenue already?

DG: Yes.

SM: What you’re indicating sounds to me like a trend where the telecom vendors for different regions are embracing — and white labeling – the Web meeting and virtual conferencing solutions as part of their own telecom portfolios. Is that an accurate observation?

DG: Yes, that’s partially true. I wouldn’t say fully white labeled because it has our logo on it as well, but yes, leveraging their networks and our application layers and software layers that sit on top.

SM: So, it’s telecom vendors selling your video conferencing and virtual conferencing solutions, whether it’s white labeled or under your brand.

DG: Yes.

SM: What is the status of that? How many of the major telecom providers in the world actually offer virtual meeting services as part of their portfolios today, whether it’s their own solution or somebody else’s white labeled solution?

DG: I think they’re looking to grow their markets. They have network facilities and LDs with many of these customers, and they want to bring new applications to layer on top of that that they can bring and grab more wallet shares of the customers.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: David Guthrie, CTO of PGi
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