O.K. the company may remind you of Sylvester Stallone’s character in the Rocky movies, but Yo Inc. is trying to help resellers build private networks across the Web safely and to remote users.
Based in Markham, Ont., Yo is primarily made up of former Hummingbird employees who wanted to eliminate
the complexity and cost associated with network computing.
VisEdge was Yo’s first product. It was released 18 months ago, but it was not ready for AllState Insurance so Yo went back to the drawing board.
“”All it did was server file sharing and you could not run applications across the network, but now you can,”” said Gregg M. Jorritsma, director, channel sales and business alliances for Yo.
With the latest release of Yo’s VisEdge, remote users can access internal TCP/IP applications through the Web such as SAP, Outlook/Exchange, a VAX GUI application, Terminal server client, Oracle databases, SQL Server, Citrix as well as custom designed client/server applications.
Yo’s mission is to make technology go away, said Shelly Sofer, spokesperson for the company.
With VisEdge, VPNs can push out applications to remote areas for employees, suppliers, vendors and customers.
According to InStat research, VPNs are a US$2 billion opportunity today and a US$4 billion opportunity by 2007.
Besides market opportunities, Yo believes business continuity, Canadian security legislation (PIPEDA), a growing mobile workforce pegged at more than 78 million in 2002, and the fact that the Web can’t be trusted will be drivers for VisEdge.
“”People find a way to do remote access unsecurely,”” Jorritsma said. Usually it is sending a file to their own hotmail account so they can work on it at home. That is not secure,”” he said.
Currently Jorritsma is developing a channel program for the company. Yo does not sell VisEdge through the channel, but wants to, he said.
The company is looking to partner with 10 VARs in southern Ontario to start. Eventually, Jorritsma would like to see VisEdge go through distribution but under a closed loop sales model.
“”Our goal three-years from now is to make the company 50 per cent direct and 50 per cent indirect. We will use a phased approach to develop our channel. Starting in Toronto and then going nationwide and to the U.S. with Canadian partners,”” he said
Yo is in discussions with Symtech, EdgeTech, Albert White Ltd. and IT4CE to become the company’s first reseller partners.