If you’ve spent any time in corporate America, especially in the technology industry, you’ve most likely heard of, if not used Citrix’ Go-to-My-PC or LogMeIn’s similar service.  Neither are the only game in town, but when a consumer needs to remotely access their PC or Mac, Go-to-My-PC is a proven solution.  But  what about the underserved and yet untapped market of business users looking to greatly reduce costs and streamline operations by network-enabling and accessing enterprise systems and devices?  To address these M2M needs, we’ve launched AccessMyDevice.com.

What is it?  AcessMyDevice.com is an Internet-based service that enables secure remote access behind firewalls to virtually any device from a web-browser or mobile device.  Very similar to the software models of Go-to-My-PC and LogMeIn, but with very important differences.

Unlike these software-based solutions, AccessMyDevice provides secure 24/7 browser-based access to virtually any machine, device, server, PC, laptop, and more – even devices and old servers not designed with networking capability.  This even includes devices located behind firewalls, regardless of operating system (Linux, Windows, Mac, or any device with KVM support). 

AccessMyDevice: BIOS-level (Boot screen, installer, and main BIOS screen) and Windows-based Screen Shots

Two of the most important differentiators are access to all systems at the BIOS-level (see screen shot images), and the ability to conduct a full system restore remotely.   Thanks to our patented technology and use of the SpiderDuo with VIP Access, users aren’t limited by a software-based solution residing at the operating system layer.  This is especially critical if your system crashes – with our solution, it doesn’t matter, you can still access it and resolve issues quickly and easily.

If it’s so easy, why isn’t everyone using it?   Our hope is, they soon will be!  Several of our existing customers are already reaping the benefits of the AccessMyDevice.com service, and with our upcoming nationwide launch in late September, we anticipate adoption to grow every day.   Device connectivity and true M2M communications are an idea whose time has come.

No, we aren’t just taking a page from Staples.  But their “easy button” was pretty cool.

Why are we talking about Staples, and what is a brand promise?  As the device connectivity market continues to explode, it’s more important than ever for us here at Lantronix to clearly define our brand promise.  And a brand promise is just that – what you promise you’ll deliver to your customers (and partners, and employees, and investors…) – what they’ll get, see, hear and feel – every time they interact with you and your products.  Not only must you deliver on the promise you’re making, but it has to be important to the customer and differentiate you from the competition at the same time.

An easier way to think about brand promise is to simply look at some of the best brands out there – When you buy anything from Apple, what do you expect? (Outstanding user experience right out of the box, with slick technology).  When you walk into Nordstrom, what do you expect? (Customer intimacy and personal attention).  How about Dell?  Walmart? Nike? Google?  Well, you get the idea.  But before any of these brands defined their promise and positioning, they asked themselves:  Is this realistic?  Is this position ownable?  Defendable?  Believable?  Can we deliver on this strategy, and the brand promise that comes with it?

The answer for our own promise is a resounding YES.  For starters, we asked our customers!  Over the past few months, we’ve researched why customers choose Lantronix (and even more importantly, whey they don’t) and how our products perform once deployed across businesses, geographies, and industries.  We also took a look at our competition and their value proposition and positioning.  The analysis was clear – across the board, Lantronix wins because we make everything about device networking easy:

1. Easy to Choose – It’s easy to choose Lantronix as the best solution for device connectivity.  We offer a full suite of cost-effective products and solutions to fit any need, and have more than 20 years experience in device connectivity across dozens of verticals.
2.  Easy to Buy – Our global network of strategic partners, VARs, distributors and direct sales makes it quick and easy to buy our products.
3.  Easy to Implement – We’ve designed our products to be ready-to-use right out of the box, designed for rapid implementation. 
4.  Easy to Secure – Customer-tested, leading edge secure encryption technology ensures your data will remain confidential.
5.  Easy to Use and Support – If our customer-driven design and usability testing haven’t addressed all of our customers’ concerns, they can email or call for 24×7 support.

Ambitious?  Yes.  But we’ve been building toward this brand promise – from new internal systems and processes, to our culture and mind-set, to our new “30 Minute Challenge” campaign – where we walk into a potential customer site and in 30 minutes network enable any device.  Bottom line is, we’re continually fine tuning our business to make everything about your experience with Lantronix EASY.  The next part is easier (pun intended) – leveraging marketing and sales to get the word out and scale the business.   All we ask of our customers, partners, investors, and employees is to let us know how we’re doing.  We’re listening.

Related blogs and links:

• Forbes – “CMOs: Make A Connection Between Brand Promise And Purpose”

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/30/iceland-cisco-aflac-basf-branding-ellen-page-cmo-network-allen-adamson.html

• McKinsey & Co. – “Executive Insights”  http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/marketing/insight.asp
• Branding Strategy Insider – 10 Keys to Aligning Organizations and Brand Promises http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/brand_promise/

Given the success of the App Store model (thanks of course to Apple); it’s only a matter of time before the “Enterprise App Store” becomes almost as common place as the consumer version.   And at Lantronix, we believe this will be an incredible vehicle for communicating the voice of OUR customers to the market.

Over the past few months we’ve been working with customers and our internal developers to build out a customer-driven enterprise app store.  What better way to highlight the unique applications for Lantronix’ technology than to develop and promote a community of enthusiasts who are leveraging our products to build secure, easy-to-use, business-critical applications for their specific vertical markets?   Through conversations and research with our customers, we’ve learned a key differentiator for why they choose Lantronix is the fact that we make everything about device networking EASY – including ease of development, ease of reaching remote equipment using ManageLinx VIP Access and fast time to market with turnkey solutions.  While often our products are used right out of the box, some want a special feature added or want to completely modify the functionality; the App store is a fantastic way to address this important need.  The sharing of customers’ creativity and successes will reduce our customers’ development time and costs, and further accelerate their time-to-market. 

Think you’ve got an app, or even just an idea for one?  Shoot us an email today at appstore@lantronix.com, and who knows, maybe you’ll be featured in our upcoming launch.

If you click on “Transportation” on our homepage, you’ll see a photo of a line of Hummers.  Mark Tullio, (our director of marketing and communications) and I struggled over the caption that accompanies the photo.  My original suggestion was “Everyone coming home has a story to tell. Lantronix helps them tell it.”  However, we couldn’t figure out how to make a clean connection in this case that “coming home” meant vehicles returning to the US from Iraq or Afghanistan. In a recent edition of The New York Times, there was a picture of a large number of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles waiting in Iraq to make the trip to Kuwait to board a ship to return to the US.  The accompanying article was about the enormous logistics involved in repatriating all the US equipment currently in Iraq. The reason I bring this up is that Lantronix gives machines a voice and the ability to speak, and in some cases the ability to think and act.

For a moment, imagine all those MRAP’s or Hummers being driven on to a ship in Kuwait and as they board, Lantronix helps them tell their story efficiently, quietly and wirelessly to a computer database.  For example, “I’ve been running too hot lately, or, my reverse gear has been acting up, or, my oil level is low, or, my spare is missing, or, my radio needs to be upgraded, etc.” The information collected can then be communicated to maintenance depots in the US. Now imagine that dozens of ships with thousands of vehicles are returning to the US and you are a member of one of the maintenance teams receiving them. As difficult as your job is, it will be a made a little easier because your team knows the condition of the arriving vehicles. Weeks in advance of their arrival, your team has ordered the parts and fluids needed to restore the vehicles to fighting strength. Your team knows which vehicles need routine maintenance and which need more help.

When Lantronix products help vehicles tell their story in a military or commercial environment, the resulting savings in time, effort and cost can be significant.

For most of my middle school years, my Dad was stationed in Japan.  While living there, one of the many things that fascinated me were the vending machines. Yup, vending machines. But probably not exactly what you’re thinking.  Little-known fun-fact, Japan has the highest number of vending machines per capita, with almost one machine for every 23 people.  And these aren’t your typical vending machines.  Unlike here in the U.S., vending machines in Japan are graffiti-free, clean, pleasantly lit and decorated, often play video and music while you shop, and are virtually everywhere – offering an amazing variety of stuff for sale.  Amongst other things, you can buy the usual stuff like snacks, hot and cold soft drinks from the same machine, cigarettes, toys, electronics, good cold beer and, well… much more.  Over the years I’ve had the chance to keep my fascination alive while either stationed there as a Marine, traveling for business, or while on vacation with my wife and 11 year old daughter. Suffice it to say the customer experience just keeps getting better.

Increasingly, and for the usual reasons these fun and useful machines are being networked – better inventory management, more efficient use of stocking and maintenance personnel, cost savings and so on.  Needless to say, this is yet another high-volume business opportunity where it’d be exciting to leverage Lantronix’ networking experience to really impact the customer experience with these useful, fun machines.  Our current MatchPort family, as well as the upcoming Linux-based PremierWave EN, which has  a dual band radio, industrial temperature compliance, the ability to access behind firewalls,  and is enabled with SmartRoam technology, are excellent for this application.

Next time you’re in Japan, skip the room service and try the nearest vending machine.  You won’t be disappointed!