Until a few years ago, Time Warner Cable inspectors in Wisconsin had to call into the home office or refer to a long computer printout every time they thought they'd found an illegal hookup.
Now they simply scan the connection with their cell phone.
The phone's software provides instant information about where cheaters are, which connections should be live and what type of connections they should be. Inspectors can snap a photo of the offenders' handiwork and attach it to the information in Time Warner Cable's system.
"It used to be a long, slow process," said Dean Geyser, Time Warner Cable security manager. "Now we're able to actively look at the connections in the system and make sure the right people are receiving cable."
The mobile software has made the company's audits 20% to 30% more productive, Geyser said.
MSI Data Systems Inc., a Mequon company behind the software, is bringing that same kind of productivity improvement to what some say is a $1 billion software market for small and midsize businesses whose employees work outside the office.
MSI Data was founded in the mid-1980s by Steve and JoAnn Kraninger, who built the company's software development expertise. In October, the Kraningers sold their company to Harvey Shovers and Pete Piotrowski, who brought marketing know-how, operations experience and big growth plans.
Since then, MSI Data has raised nearly $1 million from Shovers and Piotrowski and outside investors. It has also secured a $150,000 low-interest loan from the city of Mequon's Economic Development Fund. In December, the company acquired the assets of ServicePro, a New Jersey firm that develops software for managing field service and repair center operations.
MSI Data and ServicePro had good customer lists and great products, Shovers said, and MSI Data had a team of top-notch software developers.
Yet neither had focused much on sales or marketing.
"I saw them as sleeping giants," said Shovers, a former field sales manager for Hewlett-Packard Co. He has 20 years of sales experience in field force automation.
The combined firm has 18 employees and $2 million to $3 million of annual revenue, Shovers said. It competes against thousands of companies that build mobile apps for business customers.
Shovers says MSI Data's advantage is solving specific business problems.
"We're unique because we're focused on some very specific marketplaces and using technologies that are easy to deploy and inexpensive compared to the alternatives," Shovers said.
MSI Data has standard software programs it configures for businesses.
Its products are the sort that very large companies like UPS and Federal Express have paid enormous sums to develop.
Smaller companies, like Milwaukee-based Tax Airfreight Inc., don't have that kind of money, yet their systems are too complicated for off-the-shelf software, said Mark Zeidler, Tax-Air's president and chief executive. MSI Data provides an alternative.
"Companies like ours can survive because of companies like this," Zeidler said.
More than 200 of Tax-Air's drivers have phones loaded with MSI Data's software, which confirms and tracks deliveries, and syncs with Tax Air's accounting, billing and other systems.
Total Energy Systems in DePere, which distributes generators and diesel engines in non-highway markets, uses MSI Data software developed by ServicePro to manage its service department, and plans to combine that with MSI Data's mobile software products.
"We're on construction sites dealing with HP and Dell laptops, wiping dust of the keyboards," said Chris Stiles, president of Total Energy.
Shortly after MSI Data acquired ServicePro, Stiles said he began talking with the company about adding the mobile software component.
"If we can reduce not only the equipment expense, but increase our productivity at the same time - what business owner wouldn't be all about that?" Stiles said.