Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Yaacov Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of Harmon.ie (Part 1)

This interview explores how enterprises are using composite mobile apps that bring various cloud and mobile services together on a device.

Sramana Mitra: Yaacov, let’s introduce our audience to yourself as well as to Harmon.ie.

Yaacov Cohen: Thank you for having me, Sramana. My name is Yaacov Cohen and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Harmon.ie. I am a global entrepreneur. I grew up in France but I lived 25 years in Israel and 5 years in Silicon Valley. Harmon.ie is an enterprise mobile vendor and our mission is to define the business consumer experience in the mobile enterprise.

We see that the enterprise is becoming increasingly mobile. People are working from all types of different devices – tablets, phones, laptops. A new user experience is required for the business users. We look at them as business consumers because we are all coming to the business place with the same consumer awareness that we have when we are at our homes, families, and communities. We believe there is a need to redefine this consumer experience in order to really adapt to the mobility needs and to the different form factors that are in play in the mobile enterprise.

The concept of Harmon.ie is very simple. It is to aggregate multiple applications into one. We call this a one-screen experience. So you can have, in a single screen, your email, social networks, and business applications. All are presented on a single screen. This way, as a business consumer, I can very easily see what’s going on in my business. I don’t need to poke my iPhone 12 times in order to open 12 different applications. My email, social network, instant messaging, sales system, and Dropbox are in a single place. In this way, I can see what’s going on with my business very quickly and I can take action accordingly.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s take some examples. Maybe you can tell us what specific customer base you are catering to. Are large enterprises your customer base?

Yaacov Cohen: Absolutely. Our customers are enterprises – mid-size to large. For example, when Citibank wanted to mobilize their workforce and enable their investment bankers to be efficient when they are meeting with clients, they need to have quick access to all the documents in order to share these documents with the customer. They are able to use their iPads in order to access their Office 365 and their Yammer sites. They are able to do that from an iPad at a customer site. They can see and interact on a single screen with colleagues. They can see document updates, conversations happening on their social networks, deals which are happening, pilots that are completed, and VCs coming from the CRM system which is delivered over the cloud. Basically, from a single application they are able to get a 360-degree view of their business. This enables them to provide information at the right time to their customer. This is a very important business tool for them.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Yaacov Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of Harmon.ie
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