An Interview with Judit Sharon – CEO at OnPage

WALTHAM, Mass. - July 24, 2015 - PRLog -- CEOCFO: Ms. Sharon, what is the concept behind Onset Technology?

Ms. Sharon: Onset has always been in the priority, critical messaging space. Onset’s latest product, OnPage, was created with the premise that some messages Just cannot wait, and using casual messaging applications for time sensitive communications is simply not acceptable.

OnPage, a cloud based, cross-platform, cross-carrier Priority Messaging system, eliminates the need to carry a Traditional Pager in order to separate the critical messages from the clutter. OnPage enables professionals to ditch their pagers, but unlike email and SMS, it ensures that critical messages will grab their attention and will never be missed. The system works over cellular as well as WiFi coverage, anywhere in the world. Even if you are in an area of no cellular or WiFi reception, the moment you step back into coverage, a continuous alert will grab your attention. You just can’t miss it! In addition, it automatically notifies the sender as soon as the message was received AND as soon as it was read. In addition, OnPage messaging is encrypted to adhere to HIPAA regulations.

CEOCFO: How does it work?

Ms. Sharon:  OnPage is like having a Pager on your smartphone. As an OnPage user you decide what kind of messages are important to you and with whom you share your OnPage ID. Sending a message via the OnPage system arrives to a dedicated inbox with prominent alert-until-read to ensure the recipient received it and more importantly read it. Once delivered and read, the system automatically sends a time-stamped audit trail to the sender regarding the status of the message.

OnPage can be sent from App to App as a “High priority” or “Low priority” message. Leveraging technology unlike any other messaging application, OnPage messages can be sent via any Email, SMS, or telephone, including landlines, whether from OnPage customers or not.

Our users are mainly IT professionals and HealthCare providers.

IT professionals receive alerts from their IT monitoring software regarding server and infrastructure health, or from IT ticketing software for Support. Currently, all alerting from these expensive monitoring systems is done via email or SMS and is often missed. IT professionals who use OnPage are able to separate and elevate those messages above the rest of their inbox clutter so they can attend to problems immediately. There is even escalation capability if the intended person does not respond within a preset amount of time, the alert automatically goes to another person, and so on, until the problem is solved.

HealthCare providers (physicians, nurses, midwives, etc.) use OnPage as a Pager replacement on the mobile device to avoid spotty limited paging coverage and gain the convenience of carrying a single device, gain global coverage via cell or Wi-Fi, and gain a visibility to message audit trail to assure accountability. Healthcare providers also use OnPage as a Secure Messaging application to comply with HIPAA requirements.

Both groups use OnPage to Elevate and Manage critical alerts by creating groups and escalation policies to ensure messages are attended-to promptly. OnPage comes with many benefits that help users avoid alert fatigue and be accountable.

CEOCFO: What is the competitive landscape?

Ms. Sharon:  There are similar solutions but none of them are as a complete solution as OnPage, and none of them allow the sender the ability to set the priority level of the message.

Some solutions are targeted specifically towards IT so they lack the security and the full messaging capability for team communication in times of need. Others are targeted towards HealthCare and lack the escalation protocols and the scheduling capabilities. The OnPage solution address all the needs of Security, Full messaging capabilities, setting Priority level of the message, Escalation and Scheduling.

CEOCFO: It seems that everybody has IT somewhere that needs to be monitored!

Ms. Sharon: Indeed. Even within the healthcare sector, we are serving IT as well as healthcare providers. It is not just in hospitals, it can also be clinics and health plans. Every company has an IT department and all are using the same systems and have the same needs to manage critical alerts. OnPage can be deployed in any company.

“OnPage raises the important messages above the messaging clutter and draws your attention to those time-sensitive, critical messages. I believe that in the future there will be two kinds of messaging – casual messaging and important messaging. The important messaging will come via OnPage.”– Judit Sharon

CEOCFO: What has changed in your approach since you first started and what have you learned along the way so it is a better product today?

Ms. Sharon: Our customers are coming to us for reliability. They want a solution that is reliable and dependable. In the beginning, they just wanted pager replacement. They used a pager, and now they want it on their smartphone, the same way you no longer carry a camera or GPS. Slowly the requirements grew and the use case changed. We have to focus on our mission statement and develop a reliable system for time sensitive messaging with all the functionalities needed to support it. It started as a simple application to replace pagers, and now it is a complete cloud-based system with redundancy, reliability and security, especially since security is becoming more and more important.

CEOCFO: How is business these days?

Ms. Sharon: Business is great. We are growing year over year and our customers list includes the who’s who of Business.

CEOCFO: Are you primarily in the US?

Ms. Sharon: Yes, we are primarily in the US. We do have some presence in Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, but we are primarily in the US.

CEOCFO: Put it all together for our readers. Why pay attention to OnPage and Onset Technology today?

Ms. Sharon: Today, we are drowning in information. Today, on my phone and on everyone’s phone, we are inundated with messages. You have alerts coming from your stock broker, you get pictures, SMS, emails, messenger, and Facebook. There is just so much, and because we have so much messaging, the important ones are often lost in the clutter. Information is key to survival in business, so we are constantly seeking information about everything and are subscribing to numerous services that continuously provide us information via messages to the point that we become numb to those alerts. It is just another alert. We’ll get to it when we get to it. OnPage raises the important messages above the messaging clutter and draws your attention to those time-sensitive, critical messages. I believe that in the future there will be two kinds of messaging – casual messaging and important messaging.

The important messaging will come via http://www.onpage.com.

Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEO CFO Magazine.