PRESS ROOM

Avistis' system helps offices go 'virtual'
Web tool to be launched at local ITEC show
Cincinnati Business Courier - October 11, 2002
By Lance Williams
lawilliams@bizjournals.com

Before last year, Mike Meszaros ran his Loveland-based company, PPC Communications, out of a traditional office space. But after he started using an early version of Avistis, a Web-based business organization tool, Meszaros decided to shutter his office space and send his employees home.

Now all six employees of the marketing materials reseller coordinate their schedules, keep track of customers and stay current with their projects from home.

"There are no servers, no hardware to maintain," Meszaros said. "All they need is a computer. I can keep track of everything that's going on. It's a pretty powerful system."

Cincinnati-based Avistis, which is planning for a full launch at next month's ITEC Cincinnati show, is aiming its Web tool at businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees, Avistis CEO Charles Ludwig said. The Avistis program was originally designed in 1998 at Avistis' sister company, Gaeanet Design, a Cincinnati-based Web design firm. The program was intended as an internal project to help Gaeanet's designers and sales team track projects for clients.

But the program became a candidate for commercial release, said Kirk Neal, director of business development for Avistis.

The Avistis program, which can be accessed from any computer or PDA with Web access, can help employees and managers track clients, prospects and projects from anywhere.

A sales manager in Cincinnati, for instance, could track salespeople's progress in several cities without ever picking up a telephone.

At M2R Technology Group Inc. in Fairfield, owner Mike Rullmann said he has been a beta tester of Avistis for nearly a year and likes its speed and ease of use. He said his engineers, which do network consulting for clients, can check their schedules before leaving a client's office simply by logging on to the Internet.

For $600 a year per user, Avistis will install the software and maintain the company's information on a secure server. That eliminates many information technology issues and costs that companies face, Ludwig said.

Neal said the program can be customized, depending on the company's size and needs. "It can be used for something as simple as running a marketing campaign to something as complex as building a 2003 Camry," Neal said.

Avistis has also partnered with Verizon Wireless to provide wireless access to customers that want that option. Verizon can provide the wireless cards that could allow access to Avistis from laptops or even PDAs anywhere covered by Verizon's developing 3G network.

Dave Gilley, data solutions manager for Verizon's Southern Ohio region, said Avistis is the type of program that could drive dramatic growth for the wireless Web.

"I was very impressed with Avistis," Gilley said. "We can build the network, but we need someone to use it."

For now, Ludwig said the company is squarely focused on marketing the products to Cincinnati businesses, although the company would eventually like to explore strategic partnerships to market the product to a wider audience.

Avistis delivers an efficient customizable Web based solution to the desktop or wireless PDA.