A Better Virtual – USA Virtual Offices

This is cool stuff. Avila Business Center in Lisbon is developing a virtual office application for the iPhone. I recently tried Siri Virtual Assistant, which is pretty cool, but Avila is proposing something far more robust. Let’s take a look.

The virtual office application is dubbed myOffice. Avila is billing the virtual office application as a first-of-its-kind because it’s being developed exclusively for the iPhone and specifically for the needs of virtual office users.

Avila Business Center isn’t undertaking this effort alone. The company partnered with a software developer called SwipeTwice to produce the free iPhone app that will be available to its clients through Apple’s App Store when completed. SwipeTwice is a small software design and development company focused on creating distinctive iPhone, iPad and iPod touch applications.

Here’s how it works: myOffice will let busy professionals tap into real-time information, like telephone contacts, e-mail and text message notifications that are still being analyzed at Avila Business Center. The company is also developing a mobile site that will allow BlackBerry and Android users to tap this same information.

Why is Avila going to all this trouble? Simple. Customer demand. Avila did a study among its 250 business center clients. It turns out that 82 percent have a favorable opinion of iPhone apps. Avila hopes to give its virtual office customers even more mobility than they already have with the new iPhone app.

I’m not sure how much it’s costing Avila to have the software developed or the mobile site built. Probably not an arm or a leg, but surely a pretty penny. But it’s a smart and innovative move that you would typically expect from much larger business centers. At the end of the day, this type of innovation could be a differentiator for Avila. Technology often is, if you can get ahead of the curve.

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