Tango Networks looks to transform enterprise mobility with Kinetic Cloud

Thanks to the meteoric rise of the smartphone, enterprise mobility became a reality—and a necessity—much faster than almost anyone in IT ever expected. In recent years, end-user organizations and vendors alike have struggled to catch up. Now, Tango Networks claims to have taken a big step forward with an offering called Kinetic Cloud, a cloud-powered mobile convergence solution.

Better control over mobile communications

“Kinetic Cloud is a new mobile offering for global enterprises that need more and better control over their mobile communications,” says Andrew Bale, General Manager of Cloud Services for Tango Networks, which is based in the US, UK, and India. Launched atop the global capabilities of IBM Cloud, Kinetic Cloud claims to be the industry’s first cloud-powered enterprise mobility enablement solution, delivering communications control, compliance, and productivity to the workforce natively on any mobile phone.

Kinetic Cloud solutions operate at network level using the phone’s native interface and are transparent to the user. User adoption can be fast and easy, with little or no learning curve or extensive training, and policy compliance is likewise unobtrusive and automatic.

Industry use cases

“Our initial focus is on the financial services vertical because those companies have to deal with a great many regulations and must have the kind of meticulous records regarding all communications that we are uniquely able to deliver,” says Bale. Other future target industries include medical, where the functional integration provided by Kinetic Cloud could allow a doctor to use a video call to help diagnose someone and to access key medical information when and where it is needed. Organizations with field service functions could also benefit.

Bale says when an appliance tech is scheduled to visit someone’s home, the call they make from their mobile phone doesn’t give the homeowner any clue of who is calling. “With our system, their personal phone would identify itself with the name of the employer,” says Bale. Likewise, the system can prevent the appliance tech from making outgoing calls or sending text messages while driving, avoiding the risk of a distracted driving accident, says Bale.

“We also see a huge need for mobile communication to be integrated with CRM and workforce optimization applications,” Bale says. For example, he explains, Kinetic Cloud could permit a salesperson to have a sales call automatically logged in Salesforce as soon as they terminate the call (and add notes on the call using dictation), saving time and ensuring key information is retained.

How does it work?

Tango Networks describes Kinetic Cloud as a communications control service offering enterprises, including multinationals, a single point of management that integrates their users’ mobile communications with their office Unified Communications (UC) systems, fixed telephony, call recording systems, and even business applications. Among the capabilities Kinetic Cloud offers include the following:

• Automatic logging of mobile calls and texts into CRM and other business applications.

• Separation of work and personal communications and identities, ensuring personal calls remain private for compliance with GDPR and other privacy regulations.

• Centrally enforced safety policies, such as blocking mobile usage to cut the risk of distracted driving.

IBM Cloud provides key functionality

Bale says if someone had told him a few years ago that he would be able to get the capabilities now offered by IBM Cloud to support a cloud-based telephony system, he would have been more than willing to pay a huge premium. “Today, I can get that functionality from IBM Cloud and simply pay for it from my opex budget,” he adds.

“A recent Gartner Magic Quadrant placed IBM Cloud in the bottom left; we think that’s a completely false ranking,” says Bale.  In his view, IBM has been transformative for his company, and the reality of what IBM Cloud offers represents actionable value, not hype. “When we look at the world, we aren’t interested in some huge juggernaut of untested stuff coming to market, which is typical of some cloud IaaS alternatives,” says Bale.

Changing the paradigm: A new class of telecom provider

For enterprises, mobility is the dominant communication technology of the age and rapidly becoming the dominant IT infrastructure, notes Bale. That’s particularly true now that every enterprise is building cloud-based services intended for consumption on mobile devices. However, he notes, even the largest and most sophisticated enterprises in the world still depend on mobile connectivity that is essentially consumer grade. “It’s the same as what a 16-year-old uses to play games,” Bale explains.

What Tango Networks aims to provide is a front-end service that gives enterprises control over every application, every data packet, and every phone call. “We represent a new class of telecom provider,” says Bale. “We don’t own spectrum or cell towers; we own a mobile core that can be sold in conjunction with the offerings of existing tier 1 mobile operators such as Sprint in the US, BT in the UK, and KPN in the Netherlands,” he says. In addition, the company works with channel partners, primarily systems integrators.

An industry analyst viewpoint

In a published statement, Diane Myers, Senior Research Director for IHS Markit, said, “It is important to enterprises that their control over mobile users, communications, and business applications aren’t fragmented and siloed.” Thus, she noted, a solution such as the Kinetic Cloud “that can link platforms and systems into a unified whole to eliminate fragmentation and ensure compliance should aid enterprises in managing mobile communications in the same way that they control fixed devices and services.”

That’s a promising conclusion and one that underscores the strength of what Tango Networks has built on the IBM Cloud.