iotum, the company that brings relevance to communications, is debuting iotum Pronto Conferencing at the DEMO 2006 conference. iotum Pronto Conferencing eliminates the need for special phone numbers, PIN codes or access codes to participate in a conference call. Pronto Conferencing will be released as part of the company’s iotum platform, the world’s first presence based, contextual communications manager. With iotum Pronto Conferencing, conference call participants dial the regular phone number of the iotum enabled conference organizer and then are immediately placed into the conference bridge without any additional work or effort.

“We’ve all experienced the situation of trying to join a conference call when we have forgotten the conference bridge number or PIN code, especially when we’re mobile,” said iotum co-founder and CEO Alec Saunders. “iotum eliminates that frustration by adding easy to use conference bridge capabilities to every subscribers telephone number, enabling calls to begin based on the calendar and the invited participants list as long as they are calling from a phone in the call organizers contact manager.”

As an added feature Pronto Conferencing will dial and attempt to add all other scheduled parties to the call as soon as one of the scheduled participant calls into the conference, thereby eliminating the need to wait for dial-ins. Pronto Conferencing also allows optional participants to participate on the call by dialing the conference organizers telephone number. They will be placed in an audience portion of the bridge that is muted.

“There isn’t a person who attends DEMO who won’t immediately grasp the time saving and simplicity which iotum brings to the daily communications experience,” said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO 2006. “Executives are bombarded with distractions. Given the number of conference calls they regularly have, these busy people will immediately see the value that iotum Pronto Conferencing brings to them.”

With iotum Pronto Conferencing, like the overall iotum platform itself, busy professionals are made more productive and responsive by connecting them with the right people at the right time – ensuring that inbound communications are relevant to the task at hand and avoiding unnecessary interruptions by simplifying the way telephone calls are handled.

Distractions: Our Biggest Productivity Drain

The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really productive and creative state.

With the ever-rising influx of distractions, it is becoming increasingly harder for busy professionals to stay focused and at the same time be able to determine which communications need our immediate attention and which ones can wait.

iotum –

iotum is a Web 2.0 service that solves the problem of communication overload. It prioritizes all voice communications so that busy professionals can talk to whom they want, when they want, and on the device they want – without changing the way they work or live. By mapping inbound communications to personal priorities, iotum dramatically improves users’ ability to focus their attention on things that matter most to them.

How It Works

The iotum service is based on the iotum Relevance Engine(TM) – an intelligent communications platform that understands who is calling and knows what to do with the call based on the user’s preferences, priorities, behaviors, and other contextual information.

iotum is simple to configure and seamlessly connects to users’ calendar and instant messaging (IM) tools to determine how specific calls should be handled – making filtering decisions based on who’s calling, time of day, what is on the calendar, etc. By paying attention to calling habits, IM presence, schedule, and location, iotum can:

– Bring relevant calls to users’ attention and send the others to voicemail;

– Route important calls to cell phones when users are away from their desks or out of the office;

– Notice calling trends, such as back-and-forth calls to the same person, to ensure that important calls are brought to users’ attention;

– Decide that calls from people scheduled for meetings later in the day should be given higher-than-usual priority – anticipating the potential need to postpone, change or reschedule the up-coming appointment.

Technology Excellence

iotum uses standards-based protocols and has a patent pending on the iotum Relevance Engine. The Beta version of iotum was released in Fall 2005 and will be commercially available in 2Q2006. iotum was awarded the 2005 Product of the Year Award by Internet Telephony magazine. The company is actively involved in the development of industry technology and interoperability standards.

Iotum’s Customers

The iotum service is delivered to end-user professionals through communications service providers. Leading the way for relevant communications, iotum works with key telecommunications companies around the globe – providing compelling value-add services that:

– Generate additional revenue

– Create sustainable competitive advantage

– Improve customer loyalty and reduce churn

About iotum
Founded in 2003, privately held iotum is a Voice 2.0 company setting out to shape a world of relevant communications where devices and services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with who they want, when they want and on the device they want. For more information, visit http://www.iotum.com.