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Tag: interview

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Matthieu Kopp, Director of Aquafadas

    In the French pavilion at the Mobile World Congress we found AVE!Comics, Montpellier-based firm which specializes in developing comics for smartphones.

    The company offers a very fun and animated reading style, which allows the reader to be totally immersed in the pages. Thanks to its zoom features, transition effects and other animations, reading comics on your phone is a real pleasure.

    Watch the video interview with Matthieu Kopp, Director of Aquafadas to get a brief demonstration of how you can view comics on your smartphone and to find out why Matthieu is so excited about the arrival of the iPad.

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Karim Chaari, Sales Manager at StreamWIDE

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com team was very busy at the Mobile World Congress today. One of the companies we met was StreamWIDE, a French firm that develops next generation Value-Added Services and telecom solutions for fixed and mobile operators.

    Karim Chaari, Sales Manager at StreamWIDE gave as an overview of the company and talked about the innovative solutions they provide to the market.

    StreamWIDE says its carrier-grade SIP engine is a 100% software patented technology, suited for both TDM and IP telephony, 3G mobile -compliant, and including SIP AS, MRF-p and MRF-c capabilities.

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Alexandros Moukas, CEO of Velti

     We have met the very friendly team from Velti at the Mobile World Congress, they specialize on mobile marketing and mobile advertising technologies.

    Basically they make it simple for marketers, advertisers, publishers and mobile operators to fulfil all of their mobile marketing and advertising needs through a simple, convenient platform. Alexandrous Moukas, CEO, has given us a complete introduction to the company and an overview on where it is heading, followed by an interactive demonstration by Dimitris Kontarinis, Director of Innovation.

    View the video interview to have a one to one insight into this great company you must watch out for.

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Jean-Paul Deschamps, CEO of 3Roam

    VIDEO INTERVIEW. At Mobile World Congress Smartphone.biz-news.com interviewed Jean-Paul Deschamps, President & CEO of 3Roam, the provider of IP and MPLS microwave backhaul solutions.

    He gave us a brief introduction to the company and talked about the MicrowaveRouter – the company’s star product. “Our MicrowaveRouter with its cost-optimized design is the scalable answer to your long-haul IP transport needs,” said Jean-Paul.

    The 3Roam WLS MicrowaveRouter product range enables deployment of microwave wireless backhaul networks to carry traffic in packet based networks (Wifi, WiMAX, LTE), video networks (DVB-H) or fixed line networks (micro DSLAM), reducing operators’ CAPEX and OPEX.

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Chris Cox, Product Line Manager at ip.access

    VIDEO INTERVIEW. The first day of the Mobile World Congress was full of interesting conversations for the Smartphone.Biz-news.com reporters. One of them was the interview we did with Chris Cox, Product Line Manager at ip.access.

    At this year’s MWC ip.access is presenting their multi-award winning range of picocells and femtocells, including nano3G picocell, nanoGSM picocell, Oyster 3G technology and various femto services.

  • Interview with Xavier Bertschy, Founder of CityOnline.net

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com spoke to Xavier Bertschy, CEO at xb83studio Sàrl and the founder of CityOnline.net, a specialist in web content management. Xavier was one of the speakers at MobileMonday “Android and web-convergence” event that was held last… Monday in Fribourg, Switzerland.

    Smartphone.Biz-news.com: Can you tell us a little about CityOnline.net background and what other projects your team has worked on recently?

    Xavier Bertschy: CityOnline.net is a Swiss SME providing cityguide technology. Our free service provides prompts information about all local activities of the user’s region: cinemas, concerts, restaurants, hotels, museums and shopping.

    Xavier Bertschy

    Behind CityOnline.net is Skeeble‘s technology. Skeeble.com is a mobile internet database / Content Management System for everyone.

    Skeeble imports data from all kinds of sources (XML, databases, static HTML pages, WordPress, Drupal, Typo3, Excel, Access, PDF, and many others) and provides this data in a standard and structured format to all kinds of devices. So as a result, you can manage all your content in one place and Skeeble takes care of creating the data for any interface required.

    By having this available, services, events and even information related to tourism are easily accessible to a variety of devices such as mobile phones, smartphone, PDA, iPhone, PSP, Nintendo DS etc. Skeeble automatically detects the user’s device and adapts images, videos, sounds and texts for the interface the user is using.

    A good example of this is Crans-Montana Tourism. They had recently started to use our technology. As a consequence, a user is able to access their website from the mobile.

    What are your experiences with Android so far?

    Our R&D team has performed numerous test applications for internal use. We have explored the main functionalities of the SDK, like the camera functions, the GPS device and the User Interface framework.

    As yet, we have not developed a real and usable application, however in the near future we expect to release our first application. CityOnline.net has its own Android application, but it’s a WebView of the Web Application (available with a mobile browser).

    How the Android can help with web content management, its usability and accessibility?

    Android has an excellent web browser that supports all the latest technology, i.e. HTML 5. This allows the developers to be really inventive, as they can continue to use the Web 2.0 concepts that they are already familiar with. We admit that a lot of current WebApps are now at the maturity stage, so why not adapt them to be usable on the mobiles phones?

    What distinguishes Android from other platforms?

    The alliance with Google and the mobile manufacturers will make Android available on many phones brands such as: Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, HTC etc. From what I have seen during the last months, almost all the mobile manufacturers have announced mobile phones with Android for the next two years.

    How will Android benefit from the convergence of mobile and web?

    I think that Android will benefit from this convergence as it will universalize the usage of WebApp. In this day, due to the constant increases in mobile internet connection speeds, the need for offline phone applications is quickly becoming redundant.

    Cloud-computing is the next generation of application usage and Google is making preparations for it, at the same time it is also trying to influence the users/developers behavior using Android and Chrome OS.

    Will Android and Chrome converge? Does it make sense? Do you agree that the future is just for the web-based apps?

    It is uncertain whether or not Android and Chrome will converge, but I think that Google is betting on the possibility that the usage of web-based apps will flourish. Most of all their services are available through the mobile browsers and are really handy. One of the biggest advantages of web-based apps is that they are compatible with a great number of different devices and browsers unlike native applications.

    What are the main problems Android has to struggle with?

    The Market is one of the biggest weaknesses for Android, reason being there is no way to search a specific application, and at present the quality and the quantity of applications are really low. However, Android is still young and emerging, and Google is constantly improving it day by day.

    The Android developers struggle with the problem of custom firmware on many phones as well as the hardware differences between different models. Is there any solution in your mind of how the Android could solve this problem?

    I don’t think there is an easy way to manage these problems. For instance, let’s think about the web: with the multitude of different OS and browsers, it gives the developers a hard time but they have learned to deal with that problem. The mobile development will have the same difficulties in the future.

    For example, if one wants his/her application to be available on all the different models of devices, he/she would have to be well-informed on the differences and adapt or redevelop the application for each interface. Having said that, it’s not just a simple technical adaptation; you will have to consider the navigation system, the screen size, the kind of available interactions and many other parameters. Perhaps WebApp is the solution but it’s too soon to make this prediction.

    Apple’s App Store recently reached three billion downloads. What are the perspectives for Android Market in terms of the competition with the App Store?

    I believe that Android Market will one day catch up the App Store. Apple has the monopoly with the App Store because he was the first one in the business. So why do I think that the Android Market will catch up the App Store.

    There are three different iPhones on the market, but Android is different: manufacturer-free and carrier-free. There is more and more devices with the Android OS, so if you do simple math: more phones = more customers = more money.

    Do you agree with the opinion that the Google’s main goal of releasing Nexus One was to gather critical user data for developing new software and improving Android?

    It’s really difficult to say what is the main goal of Google. I imagine that Google wants to have a functional phone to show the others manufacturers the possibilities of Android OS.

    Is it possible to imagine Android without Google behind it? How would the Android operating system look like without Google’s web-based services?

    There aren’t many companies which can afford the costs to develop a free mobile operating system, Microsoft and Apple already have their own system. But sometimes the open source community on the web can be surprisingly innovative and maybe one day we will see a new open source mobile operating system.

    And Android, without all Google’s services, would only be a mobile operating system like the others without any advantages. It’s understandable that Google integrates its services in Android, it’s a good way to get more users and develop their loyalty.

    What is your best Android feature or application?

    Actually, I have two preferences: the customizable home screen with widgets and the integration of Google’s services such as Gmail, the contacts and the calendar.

    ***
    Mobile Monday is a global community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from global markets.

  • Developing 3D Mobile Solutions: Interview with Eric Bernard, CEO of Visioglobe

    Since we observe a rapid growth of 3D interactive mobile applications market, Smartphone.Biz-news.com wanted to know more about the technology behind it.

    We spoke to Eric Bernard, CEO & Co-Founder of Visoglobe, the company that won the French National Contest for Innovative Companies for bringing innovative real-time solutions to 3D technology for mobile devices.

    Recently, they released Visio Ski, an iPhone app that enables to navigate in 3D on the ski trails of 3 Vallées French ski resort.

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com: Try to convince me I should not go skiing to Courchevel without Visio Ski installed on my iPhone.

    Eric Bernard: Our app grants you access to a 3D and completely interactive map of ski trails. Geolocate yourself, wherever you are! Identify immediately the trail, the lift or simply the mountains near you.

    Eric Bernard

    Visio Ski also makes your first rides in the resort easier by enabling you to bookmark trails or lifts, or even to share your GPS position with your friends.

    Once installed, the application contains all the data necessary so you don’t need to use the network on site and thus avoid data roaming charges (except if you send your position by email) and get better battery life. Given that the data is embedded in the application, we recommend to install the application from a WiFi connection.

    How the developing process of this app looked like?

    We have made a partnership with the US company Intermap. They provide us the data, then we optimize it we combine them with the ski trail, lift, POI information, and we integrate those data with our application for having the full area in 3D with all the information.

    The application is running on iPhone, and soon we will start the development for Android. Those two environments are from our side the most interesting for this kind of application.

    Tell as a little about your real-time 3D engine, a core of your technology.

    The Visioglobe Technology is a first life experience, which enhances the real world experience by providing the world in 3D on embedded devices with high detailed buildings and landmarks.

    The world is enhanced with real time information of the surrounding environment, for example to find friends, events, restaurants, and other useful places of interest.

    The background came from the aircraft simulation, and we have decided to port it on mobile phone for addressing the mass market

    What is today’s biggest challenge for 3D real-time visualization for smartphones?

    Have the better 3D chips, to be sure that the rendering is good and fast enough. It’s the reason why we have built strong partnership with hardware provider, like Imagination Technologies for the mobile, and NVIDIA Tegra for the automotive.

    In the near future, in what kind of mobile devices and applications you think you could use this technology?

    All the mobiles which have a Power VR from Imagination Technologies, and actually Imagination have been shipped in over 100 million consumer products. So all the smartphones from Samsung, Nokia, Sony, LG, HTC and Motorolas can receive our technology.

    How will Google’s and Nokia’s navigations change the navigation, and 3D navigation, market? Have you already noticed any impact?

    A lot! But it’s very good for us, because our market is in B to B and we provide 3D to the navigation and LBA application which didn’t have it. So for the moment all the mobile phone manufacturers, operators, and even Google could be interested by our application for having a very good 3D engine on mobile phone.

    Having well equipped smartphones, do we still need PNDs?

    No, because until recently the PND didn’t have a 3D chips embedded. And for the future, the PND market doesn’t seem as promising as the mobile phone market.

    What are you presenting at this year’s World Mobile Congress?

    We will present our application on the Imagination Technologies booth the Monday 15th of February, and Wednesday 17th of February. And full time with Navteq for presenting their last enhanced 3D city model at the Pueblo Español just above the Fira de Barcelona.

  • Interview with Anna Chagnon, CEO of Bitstream, the Maker of BOLT Mobile Browser

    Global mobile communications software and technology giants Bitstream see the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as a perfect platform to expand its influence in Africa and beyond.

    Nigeria is currently Africa’s biggest user of Bitstream’s flagship product – BOLT mobile browser – and once the football extravaganza hits the continent in June and July, the impact should be felt far and wide, says award-winning Anna Chagnon, CEO of Bitstream, in an interview with Smartphone.Biz-News.com

    “Africa is a very interesting market for BOLT. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa have been in the top 20 countries for BOLT usage, and Nigeria is typically in the top 10. Nigeria is the eighth largest country in the world and is modernizing itself quickly,” said Chagnon, named 2009 Best Executive in the Stevie Wards for Women in Business.

    Anna Chagnon

    “With respect to the World Cup, we absolutely believe BOLT will have an impact for fans. As we have seen in other parts of the world in other major sporting, political or cultural events, people turn to their mobile phones for instantaneous information and news.

    “No other platform aside from mobile offers this ability to connect from wherever a person is and retrieve the information one wants. We have also seen that sport related content is among the most popular, so we fully expect that BOLT will play a role at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2011 World Cup of Cricket in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and many others,” said Chagnon.

    Nigeria Vision 2020

    The Nigerian government has put in place a plan called “Nigeria Vision
    2020”, which aims to put a large percentage of its population on the internet by the year 2020. Given that internet infrastructure and the computers to access it are rather costly, observed Chagnon, mobile has become the access method of choice.

    Nigeria’s telecom market is now larger than South Africa’s.

    The BOLT mobile browser is indeed a hit on the world market as evidenced by the product winning the 2009 Tech Awards Circle and clinching the bronze award for the Best Consumer/SOHO Software.

    And what has been the secret behind the success of this browser?

    “BOLT’s success is predicated on a number of factors, but fundamentally begins with designing an application to address the unmet needs of mobile users around the world. BOLT is built to work on the widest number of phones in the market. We estimate that more than three billion phones in the market today could install and use BOLT,” said Chagnon.

    “We began with a set of features we knew would be popular, such as displaying Web pages just as they would appear on a desktop computer, streaming video and quick downloading of content.

    “During our beta testing period, where we had over one million downloads, we created a number of mechanisms (e.g. online forum, Twitter, Facebook, blog comments, etc.) to listen to and interact with our user base. By the time we exited our beta testing period, we had built into BOLT a number of features that were driven directly by users’ input. As a result we’ve seen a sharp increase in downloads – now approaching three million – since the summer because BOLT is the mobile browser that best addresses the market’s needs,” she added.

    Since 1983, its award winning font technologies have been enabling device manufacturers and application developers to render the highest quality text in any language, on any device, at any resolution.

    Mobile User Experience Conference

    Headquartered in Marlborough, the United States and with offices around the world, Bitstream showcased its products at the Mobile User Experience Conference in London in November 2009 and used the occasion to share ideas with other players in the mobile industry.

    “We believe it is important to create the best mobile user experience possible. The Mobile User Experience Conference gave us the ability to learn from our well respected colleagues in the industry the best practices for building an easy-to-use yet robust user interface for BOLT.

    “The user interface of a mobile browser is critically important to individuals who browse the web on mobile devices and we continually strive to improve all facets of it so that BOLT users will have the best mobile browsing experience on the market today,” said Chagnon.

    Bitstream has expertise in font rendering, and its font technologies are used in all forms of consumer electronics, including video games, televisión sets, computers, mobile handsets and more.

    “We have worked hard to innovate and create new technologies that display crisp text on even the smallest screens. Since some of our competitors in different industry sectors have reached out to us to use our technologies for rendering fonts on their software, we believe we’re impacting the ability to make reading easier in digital content.

    “Our expertise in rendering fonts has led to innovations in rendering graphics and images too. Perhaps the biggest compliment we’ve received for BOLT – one we’ve received in numerous product reviews – is that it is able to deliver the most faithful rendering of Web pages and graphics than any other browser in our class. As a fundamental element in browsing, achúrate page rendering is more important than any other feature, including speed and we see other companies trying to follow our lead in this regard,” said Chagnon.

    BOLT 1.6 Availability

    In December 2009, Bitstream announced the availability of BOLT 1.6, "the most fully-featured mobile browser available for mobile phones of all types."

    BOLT 1.6 outscores competing mobile browsers earning a perfect 100 percent on the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test. The Acid3 test, created to help browser vendors ensure proper support for Web standards in their products, tests Web 2.0 dynamic Web applications and visual rendering, including Web fonts.

    According to Bitstreams, for all mobile data networks that support it, BOLT 1.6 now offers full socket-based connectivity which can increase the page rendering speed of BOLT by as much as 15 percent.

  • Poken: Say Goodbye to Business Cards

    Stephane Doutriaux

    Poken is a startup based in Switzerland with offices in Silicon Valley, CA. Poken has established itself as the social business card for staying connected. The Poken network makes it easier to connect and stay in touch with the people that you meet.

    The first product is a fashion accessory that you can carry on your keychain and easily share your social media information by touching pokens and connecting with them on the poken platform.

    Data is wirelessly and instantly sent from one device to the other based on the proximity and now both users will have the contact information that matters most in a digital world.

    The Poken network online allows you to download your data stream to view your contacts, allowing you to see who you just met. The data includes all of their social profiles allowing you to to connect with them on a much deeper level. Simply explained, you can see their latest Tweets, their latest Facebook updates, their Flickr profile, etc, all based on what profiles they filled out and added to their Poken.

    "Many people easily forget name, I’m one of them, but we remember people more easily when we can see faces or key in on information that remind us of where we met them," says CEO and Founder, Stephane Doutriaux in an interview with Smartphone.Biz-News.com.

    The network has now become an action verb. The hope for this startup is that more and more people Poken each other.

    The Concept of Poken

    The idea first came to Stephane while in business school, completing his MBA program. Originally from Canada, transplanted to Switzerland, Stephane enjoyed the camaraderie of his classmates but all good things come to an end. On graduation day everyone was exchanging emails, phone numbers, but residence information was hard to share because few had permanent locales.

    It’s too easy to assume that everyone has a Facebook or LinkedIn account, and in this case, it was just not so. In various countries around the world, certain popular networks are not as popular and substituted with local niche networks. In this case it made it hard to keep track of everyone.

    Stephane notes that "In the world today, internationalization is changing how we communicate and stay in touch with one another."

    Aside from exchanging emails and phone numbers, another option was to surf the school alumni network which is manually exhausting and very hit and miss.

    In an example Stephane gave, with 90+ people in his graduating class alone, he was not always sure if he found the right "John Smith" in the database, and if he didn’t, he started his search all over again. It just didn’t seem functional, and created more confusion and frustration when you sent invites, hoped they responded, hoping the invite didn’t go into junk mail.

    "Finding people can be filled with too many barriers," states Stephane.

    This was where the inception of Poken came from, a quick touch and go system that could gather you everyone’s information, giving you multiple points of contact.

    The name itself came from a lot of brainstorming. In Facebook you can poke someone which gives them access to your profile for a few days, and it says that you’re wanting to get to know them. A token is a piece of information in the digital world, so Poken was the natural combination of both those words. An important factor to the entire process was it had to be something that did not exist already, but was catchy enough to attract attention.

    Thus Poken as it stands today was born.

    The World Pokens

    Staying connected is increasingly important, especially with a younger generation that is constantly switching jobs or residences. To be clear, Poken is more than just the little devices you see on our site, Poken in a broader sense is the act of connecting with people in the real world. Poken looks to create ways that people can build a network, they are also looking at mobile devices and other real world products that makes sense to use when you connect with people in the real world.

    Poken strives to be as universal as possible. They added many popular networks, and depending on what countries took off, they’d look at them and see what networks were heavily used there and create a network connection for them. Now an open API exists where the networks themselves are able to create their own social connections for the product to recognize.

    "The debut of Poken has been a wild ride. I had a startup back in 2000 that didn’t get as far as Poken has today so I’m happy to see that it’s been received well," Stephane shares.

    Poken started out with fundraising efforts, and building a strong team, but what gained them traction and notoriety was an online site that encouraged users to spread Poken around them, share with their friends, and accumulate points and popularity, and for some even money. That really started working well in many different countries, and in some that could not support the bandwidth required for a system like Poken. So it was very surprising.

    The Poken interface is very simple and logical, where users can upload information from their keychain accessory, no drivers, no installation required. Click the link on the drive and the website pops up. You’ll see the people that use Poken and when you met them.

    The timeline matches your real world experiences with the people you meet. Finding people is simplified since it’s easier to remember a general timeline as opposed to finding them on Facebook contacts when you can’t remember their name. The timeline has proven to be effective for users so the user interface has remained for now.

    Currently Poken is sold in more then 40 countries. For 2010 they are working on updates to the tools used to create a Poken network with a more targeted strategy. They are still a relatively small startup, so no TV or billboard, no Superbowl ad, but keep doing what they do best.

    A focus on building tools for advertisers and event organizers is key in their plans. The hope is to encourage people to use Poken where they are at establishing an ecosystem of contacts.
     

  • Zhone Technologies Makes Impact with Telecommunications Platform

    The world of telecommunications is rapidly changing. The amount of information we are consuming on both personal and business levels is increasing and forcing the telecommunication companies to innovate, create, and deploy sustainable equipment allowing growth and ease of use.

    As higher levels of broadband are needed, the transition is leaving many service providers looking for a company that can offer an “all in one” answer to streamlining their offerings.

    Zhone Technologies specializes in multi cell service platforms selling to the service provider community globally. The company which pioneered the known as Broadband Loop Carriers (BLC’s) has just recently turned 10 years old.

    In those years they’ve seen the landscape for telecommunications change from the world of copper to the introduction and adoption of fiber. Most importantly though, they’ve always looked to the access market as an area where they need to focus their services in providing technology for all options available in market place. ADSL, BDSL, ESM, GPON, and active Ethernet.

    Growing revenues while maintain customers is what service providers look to do.

    In the Zhone

    Zhone prides itself in providing excellent customer service, but they also look at helping the service providers they work with provide the best experience possible. Their product is unique in the market, and one that stands the test of scalability and transition, as people move from copper to fiber.

    Zhone produces a platform where providers can service all technologies on same platform, unlike having to service multiple devices.

    “We’re also known to have the smallest most dense engineering boxes so service providers can get the most out of serving the most number of customers,” says Gerardo Lara, Director of Marketing at Zhone in an interview with smartphone.biz-news.com.

    The two factors that set Zhone apart from their competitors is their main drive to focus on two things for their customers, longevity, and cost savings.

    The high point is the engineering strategy that is a focal point for all technologies. Unlike others in the business offering copper services, the need for bandwidth is going up and fiber is a necessity. So when a company goes out to buy a multi platform box to service copper connections but grow into fiber, they don’t have to change their equipment entirely, they just remove the copper services. Transitions are easy and seamless. This ensures the longevity of the box since it’s scalable and will grow with the end users as their company grows.

    Having a dense platform is another win for Zhone. If you look at their latest platform, the MXK, if you were to do all GPON it’s possible to service up to 9,000 customers at once, off one platform. When you compare that to other comparable solutions it’s not as dense and companies have to buy more boxes, more cards, and overall becomes a expensive option. By reducing these costs, and having them only depend on one box, you’ve essentially saved them a lot of money.

    Copper to Fiber

    When asked when a company changes over from copper to fiber offerings, Gerardo says, “it’s not so much company to company where the decisions are made as much as it is country to country. In certain countries like the Middle East, they are going all fiber and skipping copper all together. In the US, there is a lot of mix use depending on the company and where they are located.”

    The return on the investment for fiber is what scares most service providers, because you have to dig and put down fiber which is the biggest cost associated with these services. New neighborhoods are prone to get fiber before anywhere else only because there is digging being done already, so copper become obsolete. If they build it, will customers buy it, is a key question that is being asked by service providers. The natural return on investment comes out to 3-5 years, but most would like to see that number reduce.

    Some markets like Japan and South Korea are exceptions to the rule, the return is more immediate because of how information is consumed by the population.

    Verizon is the most aggressive in fiber offerings, in the U.S.

    At the Ethernet Expo 2009 in New York, Zhone had the honour of being on the panel for “Think Tank – Carrier Ethernet Network & Service Management Strategies."