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Endpoint Systems |
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October 16, 2017 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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Q&A with Lucas Vogel, CEO of Endpoint Systems providing an Open Platform for Building, Hosting and Supporting Apps, APIs, BizTalk and DevOps Consulting for Small Businesses |
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CEO
Endpoint Systems
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – October 16, 2017
CEOCFO: Mr. Vogel, would you tell us what about Endpoint Systems? Mr. Vogel: For many years our focus has primarily focused on enterprise application integration, and we have a pretty decent portfolio of integration work as a result. We got started with the .NET framework back when it first came out and the Microsoft BizTalk integration platform which came out shortly afterward. It was pretty revolutionary at the time, and it was the start or the service-oriented architecture discussion, moving enterprises to build asynchronous, message-based integration apps around the concept of services, and service-oriented architecture. It took integration to a new level. We have been doing that for quite a long time. As the market moves towards less monolithic services and integration solutions, we find that there is no shortage of work and no shortage of demand for what we call integrative services – composite services that tie internal and external resources together to perform a business function. What we aspire to do is to build an open platform for small businesses to try to standardize and lower the barriers to entry for smaller companies who cannot necessarily afford an enterprise type system but could still benefit from enterprise services. We also have a software product we built with Oracle that extends their embedded, native XML database product into the .NET developer ecosphere, and we’re actively developing demos and use cases around APIs and microservices with it. There is a ton of XML data out there looking for a good home, and we think the .NET developer market is vastly under-served with its XML data. When Microsoft started sunsetting its Silverlight platform, it replaced it with Node.js and ever since then everything is JSON, which is a great for data transmission but not always ideal for NoSQL-base data storage.
CEOCFO: What do you understand about integration that perhaps less experienced people do not? Mr. Vogel: It is not so much the fundamentals of integration as it is the end goal that is important to people, that they can pick-up on better. Back in the 2000s, Microsoft came out very briefly with a kind of mashup portal called Popfly where you could pick from a catalog of different APIs and services to use as building blocks that allowed the technically minded to build widgets and web apps. For example, a user could take contacts from their Live Mail and feed them into Google Maps, and build a widget showing all of your contacts on a map – all without writing any code. There were a lot of other examples, and eventually, they took down the portal, but it was a great example of the potential that APIs and services when they all work together. Every e-commerce website, for example, is a mashup a wealth of APIs and services working behind the scenes. You could be plugging into a CRM system, a product catalog database, an authentication provider, an order fulfillment company, and a payment processor that is going to take your customer’s credit card and perform transactions. So while the concept is not new, we think we can expand the scope of services into a broader market.
CEOCFO: Who is turning to you for services? Mr. Vogel: Our primary customers to date have been enterprise and technology companies. We have done some work for Motorola, we have done some work for Global Payments, companies like that which has an established global presence. We are starting to focus more on the small and medium-sized businesses. We still support enterprise businesses, but on the product development side, we are looking at ways to bring enterprise-level benefits to smaller businesses lacking the expertise or wherewithal to integrate more sophisticated services into their businesses. Cloud computing vendors bring a vast catalog of innovative technologies where the demand for the skills required to implement far outweigh available supply, especially in some of the more exciting features such as machine learning and some of the more intelligent aspects that the cloud catalog brings. Finding resources that can tie everything together can be time- and cost-prohibitive for most. We are hoping to build a decent sized shop where we cannot only provide services to customers, but we can scale them out and make an environment that smaller businesses feel comfortable turning to when they cannot find the one-off contractor to help them out.
CEOCFO: Where are you in that process and what are you looking to develop? Mr. Vogel: We are working on a self-service portal that focuses directly on the small and medium business market. We are planning on getting a site up that gives new and existing businesses a running start at it more sophisticated services right off the bat. The site is going to be called The Basic. It is going to talk about things that are available to businesses regarding technology. We are going to break those services down into a catalog of services for companies to pick and choose - from the basics, such as web hosting, to specialized services such as AI-driven product catalogs and bots on websites for scheduling appointments and managing customer service. We want to use the site to provide services, but most importantly, obtain feedback from our client base so we know what we can offer to them and anybody else.
CEOCFO: What is the strategy to standout? Mr. Vogel: You stand out with pricing; you stand out with available, affordable services; and you stand out by listening, and giving them the IT services they are not finding anywhere else. I think it's as simple as taking a look around at companies struggling to establish or maintain a web presence, or even something as essential as showing up in a customer search. We want to raise the bar on that so that every small and medium business has not only a place to go for their answers, but a single source that can help them but they successfully integrate into the ecosystem that optimizes their business results. Anybody a business as small as a one-man roof repair company, I think we can give them a competitive web presence at a very reasonable rate, and help their business grow from there. We can integrate his business into Google so local customers can find him, give him a CRM system that integrates his phone calls, and an automated bot that customers can interact with to schedule consultations. We can help him take payments over his website and make things easier for him and his customers. At the end of the day, we're not just selling him a bill of goods - we're helping him manage his business, and manage it to scale.
CEOCFO: Why is the time right for smaller businesses? Mr. Vogel: In today's API economy there exist a growing marketplace of companies whose business models focus almost exclusively on providing APIs in just about every imaginable industry. These API vendors have a primary focus on capturing enterprise customers and for a good reason. While we compete in that space as well, our goal is to come to these vendors as a multi-tenant client looking to leverage their services at a more economical scale. Ironically, I think many API vendors focus on customers as an individual entity, where they could do much more business if they include service providers in their customer scope.
CEOCFO: What is your geographic reach today? Mr. Vogel: For the small and medium businesses, we are focusing on our local market in Florida with a global scope for larger customers.
CEOCFO: How is business?
Mr. Vogel:
It is a little quiet. We are focusing on pushing out content right now. We
do not have nearly enough out to start talking about things. We are trying
to get our XML database product in a state where we focus less on
maintenance and more on its practical implementation to help us carry out
our objectives in provides meaningful APIs to small businesses. CEOCFO: What should people understand about Endpoint Systems? Mr. Vogel: It’s an API economy, and in a competitive marketplace where companies live and die by the quality of their APIs, we’re helping our clients survive and thrive in it. We’re not only helping build this market, but we’re also coming into it as a multi-tenant customer looking for products we can take to our market. We think companies like GoDaddy have had a decent head-start at it, but we think we can do better. |
“It’s an API economy, and in a competitive marketplace where companies live and die by the quality of their APIs, we’re helping our clients survive and thrive in it. We’re not only helping build this market, but we’re also coming into it as a multi-tenant customer looking for products we can take to our market. We think companies like GoDaddy have had a decent head-start at it, but we think we can do better.”- Lucas Vogel
Endpoint Systems
Contact: Lucas Vogel 866-637-7274 lucas.vogel@endpointsystems.com
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Lucas
Vogel