Calling from the cloud

A small company in Fort Myers called Interop Technologies is making big waves among mobile-phone operators.

In fact, the company recently was awarded a patent that will let cell-phone operators use Interop's cloud technology for things like chat messaging and video-file transfers.

That's important because many smaller mobile-phone operators can't afford the staff and maintenance of the hardware needed for these new communication functions. Interop provides a system that allows these carriers to outsource these functions without having to make a big investment in capital equipment and people.