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Vision, momentum drive AGT's competitive edge

by Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

AGT's Josh Lott diagnoses a network hardware server. Photo by Kathy Hagood, © 2004.

When Michael Valletutti has a question for his business partner in Atlanta, he's not limited to the telephone or even to email. Instead, he can talk face-to-face via videoconferencing.

Both have cameras in their office that allow them to see each other at their desks. A picture-in-picture feature lets them maintain eye contact while sharing other information. They can zoom in and out when needed.

"We use it all day long," Valletutti said. "It's just a much richer form of communication."

Valletutti, 36, is chief executive and co-founder of Applied Global Technologies, a Rockledge company that develops videoconferencing tools and manages videoconferencing services for companies and government agencies. The company made the 2004 Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies, with average annual sales growth of 90.8 percent.

AGT expects to register $26 million in sales for 2004, about 20 percent growth from the year before.

Valletutti, a 1986 graduate of Merritt Island High School, left Brevard County for Georgia Tech, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial and systems engineering. As a graduate student, he worked in a Georgia Tech research lab. There, he met lab director Ben Atha, and the two eventually came up with a plan for a company that would improve the then-new world of videoconferencing.

The company got its start in 1993 in Atlanta, where AGT still operates an office. Valletutti moved the headquarters to Rockledge in 1996 so he and his wife, Reneé, could live in their hometown and he could expand the company with employees he knows and trusts.

When he made the move to Rockledge, AGT counted 10 employees. Today, the company has grown to 100. Those include Valletutti's sister and about five fellow MIHS graduates.

A recent conversation with his co-founder in Atlanta, Ben Atha, showed none of the jerky video or awkward audio delays of the early days of videoconfer-encing. Those bad experiences caused some companies to give up on the technology and provide fertile ground for AGT to harvest new customers.

"We're fixing their problems. That helps drive demand. People are coming back to the service," Valletutti said.

Market research firm Wainhouse Research estimates more than 600,000 group videoconferencing systems are in place worldwide. "It's close to getting mainstream in the business world,"said Alan Greenberg, senior analyst and consultant.

AGT has managed to distinguish itself. "They're pretty well-run and they have a vision, and not everyone has either one of those," Greenberg said. "They have a momentum that few others have, but they do have competition."

AGT's advantage is that most of its competition offer only some of what AGT offers. "There is no competition doing the particular suite of offerings they've come up with," he said.

The company uses commercial off-the-shelf products as well as custom tools to provide solutions. AGT can make the delivery of a presentation within video more seamless and effortless by, for example, insetting video of the person making the presentation. "It's a nice way to keep the human touch while you're getting the presentation," Greenberg said. People on either end of the videoconference also can have different systems.

AGT also is doing well to focus on managed services, a hot aspect of the industry as many companies are outsourcing the management of their videoconferencing, Greenberg noted.

Valletutti touts AGT's ability to design networks to allow for a more natural videoconferencing experience, installing and integrating hardware, training users, and providing tools to improve the communication.

For example, AGT built classrooms and provides video-conferencing for training and communications to U.S. Navy carriers at sea. They connect via satellite, but in the United States, customers can run videoconfer-encing across their IP network.

Not having special lines to install makes the technology much more cost-effective than the days of $2-plus per-minute charges. "The IP world has changed the rules a lot," Valletutti said.

AGT's edge, according to Valletutti: R&D. The company employs 16 engineers devoted to research and development of new products to improve the videoconferencing experience.

Outside work, Valletutti's mind often is still on business. When not practicing his guitar, he reads business texts in his spare time. "I think it's just fascinating," he said.

The Valletuttis live on Merritt Island. Michael and Reneé, a freelance graphic designer, have three boys: Anthony, 10; Adam, 8; and Noah, 5.