Hello Hoiio

For the globally connected, making inexpensive overseas calls has been a thing of the past for some time. With the many callback and VoIP systems, the individual has much choice. But how about businesses? They usually have expensive PBX systems which are just limited to desk phones but can’t take the technology into the mobile world. 2.5-year-old Teliwave is one of those few companies out there who help companies make better use of their PBX systems.

Teliwave offers three different products meant for three different kinds of users: (1) Hoiio Personal (for the individual) (2) Hoiio Mobility (3) Hoiio Office (company-wide version of Hoiio Personal). (Check out our interview with one of the founders.)

While there is nothing really special about Hoiio Personal as this space is severely saturated (check out pfingo, Jajah), it is the latter two which make their offerings more interesting.

Hoiio Mobility targets companies who have already invested in expensive PBX solutions, which allows employees to make long distance calls using desk phones or on-net calls. The Hoiio solution extends the corporate internal PBX system to mobile phones so that the company’s PBX investment goes a longer way. Employees can now make calls on their mobiles and have them routed through the company’s PBX system.

A diagram from Hoiio showing the connection of the mobile workforce to the PBX system.

On the technical side of Hoiio Mobility, there are two parts to it: (1) Mediation Server for PBX (2) Hoiio Mobile application that users have to download onto their mobile phones. The mediation server interfaces between the company’s PBX and Hoiio’s web server, and will be installed where the company’s PBX is located.

Hoiio Mobility thus targets bigger companies with the resources to have installed PBX. On the other hand, Hoiio Office targets smaller companies with a mobile workforce with the need to make inexpensive overseas calls but without the resources to have invested in PBX. Hoiio Office is essentially a company-wide implementation of Hoiio Personal.

Administrative access will be granted to the company to monitor and manage company-wide usage of calls. This admin access is also of course available to companies using Hoiio Mobility. A Hoiio Personal user will have his/her own admin access.

One benefit that Teliwave has is that with its three different products, they can target both companies which do not have PBX and those (usually bigger companies) with. This might be good because the pie is larger for them. The biggest amount of potential revenue will come from enterprises (especially with Hoiio Mobility) as there is larger scale there. But of course, if Hoiio Personal manages to win enough fans even with all the other solutions out there, it could also be a significant contributor to the Hoiio revenue pie.

To date, Teliwave has raised SGD 1 Million in equity financing, and another 0.5 Million in grants. They currently have some individuals as paying customers and have a few enterprises trying out Hoiio’s enterprise solutions.