Emblaze Mobile Launches New Branding and Business Focus

3GSM World Congress

Emblaze Mobile Ltd., the handset design and manufacturing house and a member of the Emblaze Group, is unveiling its strategy and vision to lead a new era in customised handset manufacture on its stand at the 3GSM World Congress, Cannes.

“Emblaze Mobile is all about a bold, fresh and provocative approach to a market where monoliths have caused stagnation,” said Laurence Alexander, newly appointed CEO to Emblaze Mobile. “Similar to television, the biggest killer app in the new mobile generation is – the phone itself. Our philosophy is to move swiftly with devices that have been developed to appeal to a defined market with applications, content and customised user experience that will actually make people use the phone for more than just calls and SMS. We segment the customers of our phones  not by demographic, but by attitude, desires as well as functional needs.”

Emblaze Mobile’s new focus is to deliver stylish, individual lifestyle handsets to consumers in a sophisticated market place where handsets are no longer merely a functional piece of necessary technology, but rather a desired piece of lifestyle, coupled with applications and content enablement. Emblaze Mobile aims to reshape the market with its innovation for design and usability, and to provide cool, stylish mobile devices with leading user experience in all applications beyond mere voice calls. This confident new focus was reiterated in the strong and bold branding unveiled at the show.

Alexander continued: “In the coming months Emblaze Mobile will be investing greatly to build the Emblaze brand. We will be challenging the industry to take a fresh look at the way it operates. We want to lead the industry in evolving and becoming customer focused for next generation services.”

Following months of research and focus groups, Emblaze Mobile knows what its target market wants and has developed an ongoing strategy to attack the market in a targeted way; concentrating on developing lifestyle products and software for specific people and customer types.  In building the brand, Emblaze Mobile will be single minded and aims to fit a targeted ‘image-aware’ audience, without alienating those less brand aware. Emblaze has seen that the style conscious are brand champions who drive needs, so the primary focus for the Emblaze brand is to win this audience’s heart and mind.

Emblaze Mobile has expanded its international position with headquarters in London incorporating marketing, sales and management. The recently purchased handset design and manufacturing house in Korea provides volume manufacturing capabilities, top tier mechanical and hardware design while Israel remains the technology focus for software R&D, applications and content development.

New secure partner management gateway enables operators to manage relationships with third party content and service providers

3GSM World Congress 2005, Cannes, France

elata, a global leader in mobile content delivery and device management software solutions, today announced the launch of the elata connect partner management gateway solution.  Designed for mobile operators to manage their relationships with third party content and service providers, elata connect provides a secure network gateway for third parties to deliver mobile content directly through the mobile operator’s network and portal infrastructure within a controlled and quality assured environment.

As mobile operators look to grow their content offering with exciting new content and services, the issue of managing high volumes of mobile content from a variety of third party providers becomes a critical requirement.  And, with global content brands establishing their own service portals, mobile operators will need to offer an alternative to the “walled garden” service approach and provide easier access to their networks.  elata connect” has been designed to help mobile operators configure and manage the content ingestion process and remove the bottlenecks preventing mobile content reaching the market.

With elata connect, mobile operators have the best of both worlds: a walled garden catalogue of services, where mobile content is ingested into the operators content catalogue, and a gateway approach, through one unified service delivery infrastructure.  This removes the bottleneck of managing high volumes of content and speeds the time to market for the latest mobile content and services.  Subscribers benefit from an increased choice of content and services available to browse and buy leading to higher uptake of services and increased revenues.

Based on an open Parlay-X model, elata connect provides service providers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) with a fast and reliable interface to deliver mobile content directly through the network to subscriber devices.  The gateway provides a secure framework to integrate with third party systems and the flexibility to manage commercial service level agreements (SLAs) and quality of service (QoS) guarantees for the delivery of multiple content and service types such as games, ringtones, messaging and streaming media.

“Walled garden content catalogues have helped the early mobile content market,” said Matt Hooper, Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Alliances at elata. “However, in order to make high volumes of content available to subscribers, networks need to be opened up at the abstraction layer and management control needs to be placed firmly at the doorstep of content and service providers.  elata connect enables this while maintaining quality of service.”

Global IT and Telematics industry to benefit from Netsize’s international GPRS service eliminating international roaming costs

Netsize has today announced the launch of Smart Access, its machine-to-machine messaging service based on its international GPRS network. The service enables machines with embedded SIM cards to communicate with other machines and IT systems globally.

‘Smart Access’ is the world’s first machine-to-machine messaging service which switches between predefined international GPRS networks based on least cost routing of data. This service is also a world first solution which switches between different networking technologies (GSM, GPRS and Wii-Fi) optimising transfer of data according to the best network coverage and price available.

The enabling of machines to communicate with companies’ information systems, other machines, with mobile handsets, etc. and the provision of real-time data is what is commonly referred to as Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. A wireless link is used for monitoring and control, with data transfer occurring either by request or at predetermined intervals.

Smart Access enormously benefits the global Telematics, Telemetry, logistics and IT industry providing them a multi network solution at a low cost avoiding huge roaming charges for machines and vehicles crossing borders. It is common for SIM cards to be embedded in Cars, trucks, Surveillance Cameras, Bank ATMs, Household Appliances, IT Hardware, etc.

“Thanks to our close cooperation with some major European Mobile Operators, Netsize has set up a unique value proposition for the European Machine-to-Machine industry. Offering a competitive price structure combined with a one stop shop solution relying on comprehensive integration into our customer’s back office systems have been the driving force behind the product design of ‘Smart Access.’

Smart access is an end-to-end solution including provision and configuration of international SIM Cards, access to different mobile operator/wireless networks and offers a single bill for a global service with least cost routing where possible.

Netsize currently has wholesale GPRS agreements with mobile operators in France, Belgium and Netherlands. The UK, Spain and Germany are the next three countries where this solution will be available by Q2 2005. Netsize also has access to 15,000 Wi-fi hot spots in Europe and US. ‘Smart Access’ can also be used across 135 countries using Netsize’s international SMS connectivity agreements.

Also Launches Multi-Currency Solution

Signifo Expenses, a leading provider of web-based expense claim solutions, has announced that over 30 customers are now using its SMS expense claim solution, launched in November 2004.

The SMS solution allows any user with a mobile phone to enter their expenses via text message. Mobile users simply send each expense item as and when it is incurred as an SMS message to a number provided by Signifo. The expense items sent by SMS are instantly posted to an employee’s claim within the Signifo Expenses online system, from where claims are submitted to a line manager for approval. No special software is required for the phone.

“It is exciting to see how quickly users are adopting the new SMS functionality. This confirms our belief that there is a need to record expense items at the point of pain; namely at the time when the expense is incurred,” said James Brewis, Managing Director, Signifo Expenses.

In addition to new customers for its SMS solution, Signifo has announced drinks giant Pernod Ricard and fashion retailer Fat Face as new customers for its core automated expense claim solution.

The company is also today launching a multi-currency solution as a new module to its already widely-used core automated expense claim solution.

The new multi-currency solution allows international companies to configure the program using different base reporting currencies, approval hierarchies, expense categories and other data for each subsidiary or business unit, under a single company-wide configuration that facilitates consolidated reporting for all countries and business units.

This allows reports to be generated in a number of different currencies with both local and company-wide expense claim information easily and quickly available, and helps companies comply with the various international legal and accounting regulations.

A taxi fare incurred in US dollars, for example, might be stated in British Pounds for local subsidiary reporting, but in Euros for base currency reporting if the parent company accounts are Euro-denominated.

The system can also handle individual country rules such as different mileage rates.

“Many organisations have separate business units that each require a unique expenses configuration. Often this is due to the international nature of a business, while in other cases it may be as simple as wanting to treat a sales team differently to non-sales staff. Our new functionality allows us to address all such customer requirements,” said James Brewis, Managing Director, Signifo Expenses.

The multi-currency and SMS functionality are only the latest developments for Signifo Expenses. The company’s web-based expense claim solutions include an offline version and a credit card interface and allow expense claims to be submitted rapidly, approved electronically and posted on a consolidated basis to a company’s accounts. The benefits in terms of process cost savings, greater accuracy of data and management control are considerable.

Cognito, the managed mobile data provider that two years ago migrated its  entire customer base to an advanced GPRS based solution, has announced that it has rolled out its 10,000th active subscriber. This figure represents a doubling of the Cognito subscriber base since January 2003, reflecting the growing market trend in uptake of mobile data services.   Gartner predicts that by 2010, 80 per cent of key business processes will involve the exchange of real-time information involving mobile workers.

The 10,000 subscriber mark was exceeded during the recent roll out of 1000 mobile units for courier company, CitySprint.  This contract is representative of a number of recent large orders to be secured by Cognito, and is one of its first major contracts in the courier sector, with mobile units deployed across CitySprint’s couriers, including van drivers and motorcyclists.

Founded in 1992 Cognito was the first company in the UK to be awarded a licence to run a radio network for data transmission.  Today, the company carries over 500,000 individual messages per day across all four of the major GPRS networks. Delivering all messages through a controlled real-time environment, Cognito’s network processes close to 50,000 messages per hour during peak periods.

Commenting on the achievement, Managing Director, Steve Alderson said: “Our belief is that implementing effective mobile workflow solutions offers enormous potential for organisations, not just to maintain their position, but to accelerate growth and take their business to another level.”

This view is supported by Gartner research which indicates that enterprises already basing key processes on a rich IT infrastructure can reap the highest ROI though mobile extensions of these applications. 

Alderson continues: “Furthermore, traditional markets for mobile data services, such as facilities and service management, are now being joined by other market sectors which recognise the real business opportunities that effectively deployed and managed solutions can deliver. As the provider of choice for mobile solutions we are also enabling a growing partner base to enhance the benefits delivered through their business management applications.”

In the past 6 months Cognito has secured contracts within many new sectors including Highways contractor Siemens Traffic Controls, Blick, the Stanley Security Solutions company, local government organisations such as Peterborough City Council as well as courier companies such as CitySprint.

T-Mobile and Microsoft have announced the MDA IV – the first Windows Mobile-based 3G device.

In addition, a messaging solution has been launched in Germany which packages together a scalable solution for businesses that want to empower their employees with a familiar and fully functional mobile connection to their Outlook e-mail (including attachments), calendar and contacts, while on the move. 

This messaging solution will be offered together with a range of Windows Mobile based devices (MDAs and SDA smartphones).

The T-Mobile MDA IV, the first 3G Windows Mobile based Pocket PC Phone Edition device, just 100 centimeters squared, is the latest example of current innovation on the Windows Mobile software platform. 

A compelling device for business customers, the MDA IV offers access to Pocket Outlook, Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Internet Explorer and a choice of GPRS, UMTS and W-LAN connectivity options. 

Availability is expected in summer 2005. 

Pricing details will be available upon launch.

Additional device specifications include:

– PIM Synchronisation with Microsoft Outlook (calendar, contacts, email)

– Access to other familiar applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Internet Explorer

– Camera and video conferencing capabilities via two integrated cameras

– GPRS, UMTS and W-LAN  connectivity – Three-band device supporting GSM 900,1800 and 1900 megahertz networks

– Built-in QWERTY keyboard

– VGA touch screen

– 520 Megahertz-Intel-Processor

The MDA messaging solution is targeted towards any business that wants to empower its employees with a familiar and fully functional mobile connection to their Outlook e-mail (including attachments), calendar and contacts, while on the move. 

Information can be synchronized over the air on Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC Phone enabled devices, such as the MDA-models or SDA Smartphone all available from T-Mobile.

Specifically this includes:

– A T-Mobile network tariff

– Windows Mobile based devices (MDA III and/or SDA smartphones)

–  IT consultancy (certified T-Mobile/Microsoft partners) to integrate the solution into an existing Exchange Server 2003 infrastructure

– Special upgrade packages to Exchange Server 2003 for those not running this version of the platform.

Global Crossing has announced the launch of Wireless Services Exchange, an extranet solution that provides mobile network operators with a cost-effective mechanism for the international delivery of multiple services over a single direct interconnect from a neutral provider with global reach.

Wireless Services Exchange ensures the consistent, high- quality delivery of MNOs’ current voice and video applications, as well as supporting the imminent convergence with IP data services, with guaranteed feature performance such as caller line identity.

“As the wireless market continues to grow, we’re committed to delivering the high-quality IP services that mobile network operators need to meet rising demand for new converged mobile communications services,” said John Legere, Global Crossing’s CEO.

Wireless Services Exchange will be launched in multiple phases, with an initial introduction in the first half of 2005 delivering international mobile-to-mobile routing with caller line identity (CLI) and point-to-point video with differentiated billing. The second release, to be launched later in 2005, will include global roaming exchange services (GRX), short messaging services (SMS) and multimedia messaging services (MMS).

Anthony Christie, Global Crossing’s chief marketing officer, said: “Our superior global IP network and high-quality service put Global Crossing in a strong position to collaborate with mobile operators who seek to broaden their range of international services. These operators will appreciate the fact that we are a neutral network provider, free of any financial or ownership affiliations with MNOs. The growth of 3G services is driving MNOs toward convergence, and our international IP footprint matches this need perfectly.”

“Global Crossing Wireless Services Exchange enables consistent delivery of feature-rich services by connecting disparate mobile networks,” stated Keith Mallinson, EVP for Wireless and Mobile Research at The Yankee Group. “Global Crossing’s leadership in converged IP services makes it an ideal partner for mobile operators looking to migrate to an all-IP world.”

Global Crossing is positioning Wireless Services Exchange to meet the mobile industry’s requirement for superior quality, innovative messaging services and value-added IP services. In targeting international business for growth, an operator’s primary need is to ensure that customers using their services abroad receive levels of service that are on par with the “at home” experience.

MNOs see the expansion of international services as a means of overcoming the multiple challenges of increased competition from new 3G offerings, the rise of the mobile virtual network operator, pressures from national regulatory authorities and flattening revenues from domestic voice and text messaging.

Providing high-quality CLI transmission and processing is critical for MNOs and an important service differentiator for Global Crossing. Transmitting CLI drives end users to both answer and reply to more wireless calls which, in turn, drives up call minutes and revenue for operators.

Wireless Services Exchange enables the convergence of both voice and video traffic over the same connection, which is unique to Global Crossing and is a key differentiator from other international providers. The service also has the capability to offer differentiated billing for point-to-point video. This means MNOs do not have the cost of providing separate circuits for just video traffic, as Global Crossing’s underlying VoIP network supports the required signaling quality and creates identifiable video call records for billing purposes.

As MNOs progress toward converged IP networks, Global Crossing will be ready to deliver voice, video and data service over a single IP interconnection. The data services will be delivered via this converged circuit and the same interconnection as voice prior to the mobile operators’ network convergence. These data services will include GRX, inter-carrier messaging, content delivery and video gateways for other services. This single interconnect reduces the total cost of ownership for mobile operators as the use of a single converged circuit minimizes the number of trunk groups required, which reduces the number of facilities to manage and carrier relationships to support.

Global Crossing will target Wireless Services Exchange at the European market and is extending its interconnects in multiple geographic markets across Europe, where its pan-European network links 13 countries and potentially up to 44 mobile operators.

A dedicated Wireless Services Exchange sales team  supported by operations, product management, marketing and customer service staff  is in place to cover the UK, Ireland, the Nordics, Western Europe, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Malta and Greece.

MNOs will also benefit from Global Crossing’s uCommand on-line portal for real-time management and tracking. uCommand provides access to data such as invoices and call detail records (CDR) and allows customers to open and track trouble tickets; submit orders or make inquiries; and to submit requests for service level agreement credits.

Global Crossing’s international network delivers IP services to more than 500 major cities in 50 countries and supports a global VoIP infrastructure that currently handles up to 2.5 billion minutes a month. This global IP and VoIP infrastructure is ideally suited to MNOs’ current demand for international voice termination, plus the inherent capability to support next-generation IP data and multimedia applications running over 3G networks.

Spin3, the leading innovator in mobile casino systems, in partnership with Microgaming, the leading developer of e-gaming solutions, has announced the launch of the first complete mobile casino system. 

By utilising the Spin3 wireless casino system, casino operators, mobile network providers and any company with an internet presence can now offer a trusted and secure mobile casino via a large selection of mobile phones and other wireless devices. 

The Spin3 wireless casino system consists of six real-time networked casino games, including blackjack, roulette and scratch card.  The Spin3 mobile casino system also includes a progressive jackpot slots game, Treasure Nile.  Players have the chance to win a continuously growing jackpot that starts at US$40,000, right from their mobile device.

“Industry analyst Juniper Research has forecast that the mobile gambling industry will reach US $16 billion in revenues by 2008,” said Matti Zinder, CEO, Spin3. “We are ideally positioned to provide a complete casino system for any company wishing to compete successfully and capture a significant portion of this exploding market.”

Microgaming’s integrated gaming and casino management technology powers the graphics-rich, Java based mobile casino games via the GameWire server to form the Spin3 system.

The Spin3 mobile casino system, which is comprised of the GameWire suite of mobile play-for-real casino games and the SpinFone suite of pay per download casino games, is able to provide CRM (Customer Relationship Management) capabilities giving customers player management, reporting, data analysis, promotion management and loyalty programme tools. 

In addition, player authentication, financial transactions and gaming activities within the system are protected by an array of highly advanced security measures that make up the patent-pending SpinLoc technology.  This proprietary security and authentication system constitutes the most secure wireless gaming system available. 

“By combining our gaming and casino management technology with graphic-rich games, advanced player management capabilities and reporting tools, customers can now benefit from a complete mobile casino that will set the standard worldwide,” said Dion Hatton, Product Manager of Microgaming. 

He added: “We chose Spin3 to market and distribute this product because of its extensive experience in the online casino industry.”

For customers that prefer to distribute a non-gambling version of the wireless casino technology, Spin3 has created the SpinFone suite of interactive casino games.  These applications, which are based on the same client-server architecture as those in GameWire, are especially suited to be utilized as an acquisition, promotional and marketing tool with such features as a leader board, interactive communication capabilities and unique branding opportunities.

Compelling channel proposition

Huawei Technologies, one of the world’s fastest growing telecommunication network solutions providers, has appointed Chris O’Dell as its Head of Channel Business for the UK and Ireland. This role is focused on driving sales of all Huawei products and solutions though local partners, and building a first class supply chain and support infrastructure. Huawei is continuing to invest heavily in the UK and is enjoying significant growth in this market with the forecast number of local staff growing to 200 before the end of 2005.

O’Dell is now on board and will be heading up the new channel business team in the UK and Ireland.  Prior to joining Huawei, he worked in Nortel Networks for over nine years in both the carrier and enterprise sectors. His previous role was leading a European business development initiative in Nortel’s Enterprise business focusing on LAN switching. “Huawei’s innovative technology and business proposition for the channel market is extremely compelling,” comments O’Dell. “Huawei’s focus on driving sales through partners will bring a new proposition to market and will provide a really credible alternative to traditional suppliers.”

“I am very pleased to bring Chris into Huawei and into this key role in our growing organisation,” comments Huawei Sales Director Steve Harris.  “Huawei has a clear business proposition and clear differentiation within this space, as Chris and the Channel Team are already starting to demonstrate to our customers.”