company.
(Click here for larger view of Product Pricing lookup in the Salesforce.com Infobot)Intellisync describes Infobots as automated, menu-driven data access agents that work just like instant messaging, but for corporate and personal data use. Users "chat" with the Infobot by typing on the mobile device screen. When a user "asks" a question, the Infobot retrieves the relevant information and communicates it as an "answer" on the user's chat interface.
Infobots are application-specific. Intellisync says it supplies a number of pre-defined Infobots for common business information including news, weather, flight information, and CRM access using safesforce.com, Oracle, Siebel, and other industry-standard ERP and CRM systems. OEMs or enterprise application providers can easily develop additional Infobots by using the Infobot development kit and scripting tools, according to the company.
Salesforce.com Infobot address lookup (left); Bookmarked frequently used Infobots (right)
An Infobot consists of three integrated components, according to Intellisync: the Infobot server; a device client; and a hosted Network Operations Center (NOC) that gathers data to send to the client on behalf of the server. The server resides behind the corporate firewall, and comes with administration tools and the Infobot SDK. Authorized users download the Infobot client and have access to Infobots enabled for them by a system administrator.
When the Infobot client is launched on a mobile device, it presents a menu that lists all available Infobots. The user then selects the desired Infobot and follows the on-screen instructions to access the corresponding data. Intellisync says that users don't require any training, because the process is as simple as using instant messaging.
Infobots securely encrypt all data sent to the mobile client so that it is not exposed to the outside world, according to the company. Additionally, the Infobot transport protocol is fully "IP-push based," making it highly efficient and using a minimum amount of data bandwidth, Intellisync says.
Infobot technology is supplied as a component of both the Intellisync Mobile Suite and the Intellisync Carrier Platform, according to the company. The Infobot client supports "every major mobile platform," including Windows Mobile.
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