FaceTime establishes foothold in marketplace and achieves two wins and six prospects in the United Kingdom with assistance of IBM

How IBM Business Partner benefits helped FaceTime business:

• Co-hosted client events yielded one win worth USD$100,000 and six prospective wins

• Lead obtained using pipeline generation benefit generated USD$25,000 in revenue

• IBM Innovation Center spared FaceTime investment expense for production system testing and validation.

Gone are the days of an Internet used mainly for simple Web surfing and e-mail traffic. It has become an increasingly heterogeneous and complex communications environment with security, management and compliance challenges.

The business at FaceTime® Communications, Inc., is to face those challenges with secure and effective ways for companies to exchange information and collaborate across the network. FaceTime software solutions enable the safe and productive use of the Internet for instant messaging (IM), the Web and unified communications platforms.

FaceTime, an Advanced IBM Business Partner, is a global company with headquarters in the United States -- in Belmont, California. In teaming with IBM, FaceTime has found the means to communicate effectively its own marketing message and to jointly sell solutions to companies primarily in the financial services and utility industries.

Taking advantage of IBM marketing benefits and technical resources, FaceTime used pipeline generation and IBM co-hosted client meetings to achieve two wins totaling about USD$125,000 and is confident of six additional wins worth at least USD$300,000. And, FaceTime worked with the IBM Innovation Center in Dallas, Texas, to earn Ready for IBM Lotus® software validation.

Sarah Carter, partner marketing manager at FaceTime EMEA headquarters in Reading, England, said the benefits have given FaceTime valuable exposure in the global marketplace and helped the company establish its presence in the United Kingdom.

High praise for marketing benefits and support

“I cannot speak highly enough about the support we’ve received from our IBM marketing contacts in both the UK and the U.S.,” Carter said. “They’ve made it their business to understand our business and then to guide us through using the benefits that will work best to market and sell our products,” she said.

In 2007, FaceTime used the IBM pipeline generation benefit to conduct a campaign targeting 250 prospects throughout the UK. Callers from a specialized agency delivered on their commitment to set 10 in-person appointments for the FaceTime sales team. Included was a meeting with one of the largest energy companies in the UK.

FaceTime informed its IBM client manager about the energy company lead and he quickly put FaceTime in contact with the IBM sales team assigned to the account. The FaceTime IM hygiene and compliance solution was an excellent fit, and FaceTime joined the IBM team on a large and ultimately successful deal that IBM was already working on with the energy company. The 2008 implementation of IMAuditor earned about USD$25,000 for FaceTime.

FaceTime has used the client events package to host two customer meetings at the IBM Forum in the IBM facilities at South Bank, which is located in the central part of London. For both meetings, IBM provided logistics, promotional and post meeting support, as well as a speaker with Lotus expertise -- all at no charge to FaceTime.

“Because of the IBM support and participation, we were able to present to our prospects at a central, well-equipped location,” Carter said. “With London’s high prices, my marketing budget would never allow me to hold such an event at any other venue in the area,” she explained. The two meetings resulted in seven bona fide opportunities. So far, FaceTime has closed one deal worth USD$100,000 with a global banking organization and, when business closes, anticipates that the remaining six opportunities will yield at least an additional USD$300,000.

Additional exposure came with the Web conference that IBM co-funded and coordinated for FaceTime. “The conference was well-managed, well-attended, and a great success,” Carter explained. “IBM again provided an expert speaker and handled everything, from registration to post-event reporting. Just like the client events, about all we had to do was show up and join the presentation,” she said.

IBM platform an obvious choice

Carter said the enterprise capabilities of IBM Lotus Sametime®, along with the large Lotus software customer install base, made the platform an obvious choice on which to certify the FaceTime IMAuditor product. Used in conjunction with the FaceTime Unified Security Gateway (USG) application, IMAuditor enhances Lotus Sametime capabilities to ensure security, management and compliance for unified communications. The FaceTime products are hardware independent and support the full line of IBM POWER® and System servers.

The USG secure Web gateway combines URL filtering, malware protection, and fine-grained control for Web 2.0 and Internet applications. USG protects investments made in Lotus Sametime by preventing users from circumventing the use of Lotus Sametime, thereby eliminating the risk of introducing security hazards that can come from using publicly available instant messaging and other real-time communications tools.

FaceTime developers, who are located in the United States, used the resources of the IBM Innovation Center in Dallas, Texas, on at least eight occasions to earn Ready for IBM Lotus software validation for IMAuditor, USG and other
FaceTime products.

“The IBM Innovation Center is an absolutely invaluable resource,” Carter noted. “It has allowed us to test and validate our products on a full production system without needing to invest in our own IBM hardware and software infrastructure. Our developers just go to Dallas for a few days or log in remotely from their offices,” she said.

A welcoming ecosystem

IBM is flexible and understanding of how FaceTime fits into the IBM ecosystem, Carter said. “IBM really gets what it means to be an independent software vendor,” she said. “That’s why we made its business partner program our choice above all others. It places us in exactly the right position alongside IBM -- and the credibility that creates in the eyes of our prospects is such a great value to FaceTime,” Carter said.