At Interop, Enterprise Sometimes Follows The LIttle GuysAt Interop, Enterprise Sometimes Follows The LIttle Guys

While the big bucks in technology are dedicated to the development of enterprise solutions, occasionally it seems as though consumer-based apps can take the lead -- at least, as far as creativity is concerned.For example, one of the first services I encountered at the Interop show this morning were major communications services that provide single business phone numbers for employees to use with both their desk-based and mobile phones. The Blackberry Mobile Voice System and Sprint Wireless Integration both extend the services of a company's PBX-based phone service to their mobile phones -- so that not only do you only have one phone number to give to your clients / colleagues / contacts, but you only have one voicemail system to check. This doesn't only make things simpler for staff, but presumably for the billing department as well.

I thought it was a great idea -- in fact, I thought it was a great idea when I first heard about GrandCentral, a Web-based company which was founded in late 2005 and that's been offering the one-number-for-all-your-phones service (and was recently acquired by Google). GrandCentral, which is still in beta, has been making something of a stir lately (for example, it was recently covered by information's Alexander Wolfe).

I mentioned GrandCentral to one of the Blackberry booth staffers, who admitted that he had GrandCentral for his personal phone -- but hastened to add (justifiably) that enterprises needed something a bit more suited to their needs.