Vocera, Inc.

Vocera, Inc. is a wireless

Wireless

Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...

 communications company headquartered in San Jose, California

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

. It specializes in network-based software systems that provide voice communication for mobile personnel in hospital, retail, hospitality, government, manufacturing and other in-building environments with a dispersed workforce.

Vocera has more than 600 installations in North America, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, ranging in systems with 75 to over 4,000 registered users. Customers include Royal Cornwall Hospitals, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center², El Camino Hospital

El Camino Hospital

El Camino Hospital is a 395-bed hospital based in Mountain View, California.Located on a campus in the heart of Silicon Valley, El Camino Hospital serves residents in the El Camino Hospital District — Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and portions of Sunnyvale and Palo Alto — as...

³ and the Orange County Public Library

Orange County Public Library

The OC Public Libraries is a network of communitylibraries in Orange County, California. With 34 branches covering the countyfrom the Pacific Coast to the inland canyons of Southern California,...

.⁴

Vocera supplies technology for telecommunication

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

 via an IEEE 802.11b/g-supported wireless LAN

Wireless LAN

A wireless local area network links two or more devices using some wireless distribution method , and usually providing a connection through an access point to the wider internet. This gives users the mobility to move around within a local coverage area and still be connected to the network...

. One of its products is the Vocera Communications Badge, a wearable, hands-free, communication system.

History

Dr. Robert Shostak, chairman and CTO, was among the original founders of Vocera in 2000. Shostak is a graduate of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and is one of the principle creators of the Paradox (database)

Paradox (database)

Paradox is a relational database management system currently published by Corel Corporation. It was originally released for DOS by Ansa Software, and then by Borland after it bought the company...

 system.⁷ Brent Lang, president and COO, also was an early member of the Vocera team and played a critical role in developing the company's product strategy and securing venture capital.⁸ Lang now oversees overall operations, from marketing to manufacturing.

Vocera received venture capital

Venture capital

Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...

 funding from a mix of venture capital firms and corporate investors, including Avalon Ventures, Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...

, GGV Capital

GGV Capital

GGV Capital is a venture capital firm focused on expansion stage investments in the US and Asia. The firm invests across a range of sectors in information technology, services and healthcare, as well as the consumer growth sector in China.GGV Capital, which was founded as Granite Global Ventures...

 (formerly Granite Global Ventures), IDEO

IDEO

IDEO is an international design and innovation consultancy founded in Palo Alto, California, United States with other locations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston, London, Munich, Shanghai, and Singapore, as well as Mumbai, Seoul, and Tokyo. The company helps design products, services,...

, Intel Communications Fund, Motorola Ventures, RRE Ventures

RRE Ventures

RRE Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investments across several disciplines, including software, internet, mobile, financial services, environmental, and other related technologies, primarily within the United States, and especially in and around New York...

, Thomas Weisel Partners

Thomas Weisel Partners

Thomas Weisel Partners Group, Inc. , also known as TWP or Weisel, is a U.S. growth focused investment banking firm based in San Francisco, California....

, Vanguard Ventures and Venrock Associates

Venrock Associates

Venrock, a compound of "Venture" and "Rockefeller", is a pioneering venture capital firm formed in 1969 to build upon the successful investing activities of the Rockefeller family that began in the late 1930s. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and...

, and began shipping products in 2002.

In May 2007, Bob Zollars joined Vocera as chairman and CEO with more than 30 years of experience leading healthcare and technology organizations.⁹

Vocera recently partnered with Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 to introduce a new smartphone product, which complements Vocera's wireless, wearable communications badge. It integrates instant voice and data communications with the functionality of a mobile computer.¹⁰

On January 10, 2011 Vocera announced the acquisition of Wallace Wireless Inc.

In August 2011, Vocera filed with the SEC to raise up to $80 million in an initial public offering.

Vocera currently has 130 employees and offices in the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

Vocera Communications Badge

The Vocera Communications Badge is one part of a complete wireless Voice over IP

Voice over IP

Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...

 communication system developed by Vocera Communications. The badge is used primarily by medical and healthcare facilities and also in retail, hospitality, government and manufacturing settings. It provides a voice-controlled user interface to the Vocera Communications System.

The Vocera Badge is voice-controlled and has the ability to do role-based calling which allows people to call other users or facilities by name or title or function. Weighing less than 2 ounces (53.9 g), it contains a speaker, microphone, wireless radio and an OLED display that shows caller ID, text messages and alerts. The badge can be worn on a lanyard or with a universal clip to attach to the user's apparel or existing lanyard.

Competitors

• IBM Global Services
  IBM Global Services
  IBM Global Services is the world's largest business and technology services provider. It has over 190,000 workers across more than 160 countries...
  
  
• Sprint Nextel
  Sprint Nextel
  Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
  
  
• Cisco Systems
  Cisco Systems
  Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
  
  
• Ascom Wireless Solutions
• Spectralink
• Call Systems Technology
• Commtech Wireless
  Amcom Software
  Amcom Software, Inc. is a communication software company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Amcom was founded in 1984 and now has offices located in New York, NY, Jacksonville, FL, Bedford, NH, Perth, Australia, and the United Kingdom....
  
  
• Voalte