We recently had a prospect from a “large Fortune 1000” firm contact us looking for a way to allow their executives in separate offices, each with their own instance of Microsoft Exchange, to have access to each others calendars. Obviously it’s much more subtle than that: their respective admin assistants are doing all the work, but apparently it requires each of the various admin assistants calling the other to check availability and location of their respective executive(s). Then of course they individually update their executives’ calendar and viola, they are up-to-date until the next event occurs. And apparently this happens all day long…

The awkward part occurs when they are scattered across the globe and in different time zones and they want to have this data available to them via their wireless pda asap, preferably immediately.

This is actually a very simple, but common, example of standard usage of our wireless pda’s. We use them to make phone calls, check emails, and manage our calendar. And of course with the release of the iPhone, everything is supposed to be possible, right? But it is the challenge of allowing data to go across different collaboration servers that is exactly the challenge that XC Bridge (Xchange Network’s solution) is resolving.

The trick of course is to get access to the various collaboration servers, access the data in the context that it is presented, and then allow that data to be made available to another user in the context of their own collaboration server – which is exactly what XC Bridge does.

But wait, it got better – This prospect also bemoaned the fact that the “calendar thing” was really just a minor problem. The bigger issue was how much it was costing his company to build unique data pipes to allow different servers to push their data to and fro. Remember the concept of “stove-pipe data” and “data silos” back in the 1990’s? Well, it still exists with not much resolution – at least (we hope) until now with the advent of XC Bridge.

XC Bridge allows that connectivity between different servers and their various different user interfaces. Its purpose is to eliminate the data silos and the custom data pipes that allow the transfer of data. More importantly, it’s purpose is to enable it quickly.

We’ll keep posting interesting stuff as it happens. These are exciting times at Xchange Network! If you are interested in more information, pop us a note to info@xcnetwork.com and mention this article. We promise to reply.