Coiler is a leading supplier of RF indoor repeaters that provide reliable access, quality voice and high-speed data transmission via cellular networks throughout any facility.
We met Ivan Cheng at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and he gave us a few more insights into the company and what its competitive advantages are.
Jorge Garcia is the Principal Software Engineer at Kvaleberg, a Norwegian company specialized in mobile software.
One of their software is Mimiria a state of the art complete applications suite for mobile handsets.
Jorge gave us a demonstration of the software in an oversized phone at the company’s stand in the Mobile World Congress.
Sven Freudenfeld, in charge of Business Development at Kontron told us about the company’s open communications platforms.
Sven commented on the sectors tendencies and how the company is responding to its clients needs. He also told us about the network processing strategy, a highlight for 2010.
We were with Kathrein, the world market leader in base station antenna technology. The company is renowned for its quality, high technology and wide offer.
Mark Bingahm, Head of Sales showed us the dual-beam antenna and shared with us why Kathrein is the preferred antenna provider by operators worldwide.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona we met with Eurotek, and Italian company that manufactures mobile phone cases and accessories.
They presented their new Dolce Vita branded products, an iPhone case with an integrated battery which you can use to recharge your iPhone when your battery runs out.
It is presently available in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland and Germany, and in no time will open new markets in Easter Europe.
At the Mobile World Congress we spoke with Sisco Sapena, CEO of Lleida.net, a Catalonia-based SMS operator. It has agreements with more than 1.000 carriers worldwide and has developed an international communication network via SMS reaching 200 countries.
They make possible bidirectional communication between internet enabled pc and mobile phones and have developed, among other services, Virtual Handset, Certified SMS, SMS Contract and Webchecker.
They say the company executes more than one million of daily transactions and their developments are translated into 12 languages including Russian, Chinese and Arabic.
At the Mobile World Congress we met with Alesandro Marcenaro, Co-Founder & Sales Director at Mobyt, a company that claims to be a key player in the European market of mobile messaging services (sms/mms) and two-way messaging applications.
They offer a wide range of products and services providing technologies, know-how, proprietary software platforms using SMPP, HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols, web and API applications interfaceable with customer systems. The company was created in 2002 and currently services more than 14.000 companies.
Smart cards manufacturer and information processing company, Hobim, was present at 2010 Mobile World Congress. They produce any kind of simcard for GSM industry, scratch cards for pre-paid services and chip-embedded cards for PSTN telecom operators.
They are also developing services and loliality applications for GSM, telecommunication and banking industry – all optimized for specific market requirements.
Smartphone.Biz-news.com spoke to Tolga Kişlal, Marketing Manager at Hobim who gave us short introduction to the company and told us a bit more about the products they were presenting at the show.
At the Mobile World Congress we talked to Denis Pagnac, Senior VP of Marketing & Sales at Mobiclip. They build branded mobile TV application for smartphones including Symbian phones, Windows phones and iPhone.
Their Mobile Video Distribution Service deployed for the TV channel FRANCE 24 Live has been chosen as a finalist in the Best Mobile TV and Video Service category of the 2010 GSMA Global Mobile Awards.
France 24 Live is a free mobile TV service accessible on a wide range of mobile devices worldwide. The application supports all wireless and mobile networks (Edge, 3G, CDMA, WiFi) enabling users to watch international news in 3 languages and stay tuned anytime.
Using Mobiclip technology, France 24 was the first TV channel to broadcast live TV and podcasts on the Apple iPhone, in addition to other phone platforms. France 24 Live has over one million users in 150 countries and has been downloaded on more than 200 phone models.
Mobile Developers have been hailed for their creativity and urged to develop more localized applications for them to benefit from massive opportunities brought about by mobile phones.
Speaking to Smartphone.Biz-news.com, Head of Marketing Services, Middle East & Africa, Woon Peng, urged them to tap in their local environments to be successful.
“When it comes to creativity developers here are at par with the rest. We are sharing tools, show them the optimized ways and giving them guidelines to develop the best applications,” Peng said
She emphasized that Nokia was working with African mobile developers to deliver the best mobile user experience through home grown applications.
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| Woon Peng |
“They know the local market and we’ll show them how to package it and deliver it, we are saying lets share knowledge, build up the energy make it happen,” she said
Creativity aside, Peng said that developers in South Africa and Africa in general still face challenges for them to successfully launch usable applications.
“What is lacking is the access to infrastructure and community groups were they can share ideas. Yes there is internet but a vibrant group of people sharing ideas is much better, so I think they need to establish a hub were they can freely express themselves,” Peng explained.
Mobile Internet Growth
It is estimated that mobile internet penetration will reach 50% of subscribers in Africa by the end of 2010, there is a huge potential for developers in using mobile phones as services platforms.
In South Africa alone it is estimated that there are now at least 9, 5-million mobile wap users in the country. These are combined user figures on all the local cellphone networks. In comparison, Online Publisher Association statistics of traditional desktop web SA users puts the local-only usership figure at around 5,7 million users.
This set up translate to the fact that South Africa has double the number of mobile internet users as opposed to the traditional PC users.
Indication are that the gap will grow bigger, given the reach and penetration rates of mobile phones, and the paradoxical situation whereby mobile internet access is amongst the world’s cheapest here, yet traditional desktop internet access among the world’s most expensive.
Given this scenario Peng said developers need to be work with academia and other institutions to develop more practical applications that will service this growing market.
“Universities and other stakeholders must provide the platform for developers to share ideas in order to come up with applications that will satisfy this growing market,” she explained.
According to the workshop organizers, future application scenarios involving mobile phones are plenty, making remote health monitoring possible, accessing personal health records, providing education opportunities worldwide, enhancing mobile banking and payment services.
This however, has its challenges which developers need to address urgently to enhance development; the current mobile applications are limited in scope, relevance and number.