Leader Technologies Incorporated ("Leader®") was founded in 1997 by veteran entrepreneur Michael T. McKibben with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. Mike had just come off of a project for AT&T where he led the re-development of their Windows messaging system in cooperation with AT&T Bell Labs. He had a vision for a new kind of web-based communications platform that would overcome the "data silo" problem that has plagued communications technologies, sometimes called collaboration technology. This vision included how technology would be used in the future to support two key organizational values: leadership and intellectual capital retention. He determined that these three value propositions could be united into a single, scalable web platform and Leader was born.

Mike McKibben, Chairman & Founder

Leader® develops and markets web-based collaboration platforms that merge voice and data. These platforms build upon the global Internet backbone and provide a single, highly interactive web control console and unified data repository. Large, medium and small businesses can manage email, voice mail, fax, teleconferencing, web conferencing, file sharing, documents, video, voting, chat, instant messaging, whiteboarding, projection, bulletin boards, news, alerts, project management, systems administration, operator services and directory services in a revolutionary new way. Traditional data and voice platforms deliver these services separately in fragmented applications and data silos at approximately ten times the cost of the Leader solutions.

Leader products and services are offered by subscription to Leader-hosted servers or through platform licenses for large customers. Leader launched LeaderPhone® in 2002 and Leader Alert® in 2004. LeaderPhone®'s web control console offers customers many power features as well as billing and account information. These products are sold through direct sales and a sales affiliate network. Web conferencing services have been added that include desktop sharing, application sharing, co-browsing, whiteboarding, chat, and video conferencing.

Leader2Leader® (aka Digital Leaderboard®) is the flagship product and is currently launched to a select group of customers. Leader2Leader® provides a complete work environment framework for all forms of electronic communications (data types) using state-of-the-art web services protocols such as XML. Large enterprises will find immediate use of this scalable system for project management, remote file sharing, customer service applications, web conferencing, teleconferencing and communications where their intranets do not service their constituents well. Medium and small businesses will embrace the full platform as an alternative to more expensive, locally installed solutions requiring regular systems administration, maintenance and upgrades. Remote and geographically disbursed workers and organizations will find the platform powerful in its utility and simplicity due to the ability to establish secure, online collaborative environment. Corporate alternatives involve buying and installing expensive software packages, configuring user machines, learning a separate interface for each application, then having to deal with the inconvenience of continual upgrades. With Leader2Leader®, once you have a UserID and Password, you are up and running from any Internet browser or wireless handheld device on the planet. Digital Leaderboard® was just awarded its first patent - U.S. Patent No. 7139761.

Also see Innovations & White Papers.