I caught up with Mitel's SVP of Global Technical Operations, Peter Polizzi, last week to talk about Mitel's efforts with pro sports teams around the world. Their efforts include a league-wide effort with Major League Baseball, a handful of UK soccer teams and a recently announced goal scored with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings.
What Mitel is doing with baseball is showing how a cloud-based telecom system can be so much more than just voice, video and messaging when the cloud and the communications hub are put to work in real-world scenarios.
Highlights included:
- Facial recognition of fan entry-this is helping teams keep rowdies out of the games. MLB teams have been adopting this after what Polizzi described as a success in the UK at soccer matches.
- An effort by baseball teams to prevent sign stealing where voice connectivity eliminates the old way of hand movements on the uniform.
- Call recording between coaches and the bullpen to confirm who is indeed being sent in as the relief pitcher to clear up a misunderstanding.
- Your drink is never empty -Using NFC/Bluetooth Sensor communications and a digital pad the size of an iPad, servers in luxury boxes and in premium seating areas can tell how much liquid remains in the cup of a spectator, and when the refreshment (beer, wine, soda, mixed drink, etc.) the server can come over just in time to refill the cup. This cuts down on labor cost, but also eliminates the unnecessary distraction of fans when the game is in progress.
- Real time game stats-using data aggregation, fans are able to see on a tablet in the luxury boxes updated, real-time stats drawn from the same statistics sent to the media.
- The No Call Zone-A clever use case that never was saw an overzealous MLB owner wanting a direct line to the dugout. The MLB Commissioner stepped in, and said "no way."
That had to be good news for the manager and coaching staff, as they really don't need the owner setting game, batter, pitcher or any strategy. Love of the game is one thing, but owners are not coaches or baseball team managers as much as some may they think they may be.
These, and other examples of creative problem solving using the cloud communications system shows that there's more to UCaaS than the basics, and that imagination is why there's more to just making a call at Mitel.
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