The Next Wireless Wave |
This year’s wireless spectrum auction should usher in a whole new wave of mobile applications. That’s where several Alberta developers come in, all vying to be the next RIM
By Scott Valentine
Most of the growth of the mobile Internet is based on the idea that sooner or later businesses, consumers and everyday folks will want a web experience on their hips that looks, acts and feels as good as what they get from a desktop computer. One with everything and a side of customizable personal expression to go, please. Take away the device that fits in your hand, and you have the realm of applications. This is where network operators and mobile software developers – the creative architects of the on-hip experience – are carving the future of the mobile web.
In truth, mobile applications are what last summer’s wireless spectrum auctions were all about: creating more (and more profitable) airspace for the swell of interactive mobile Internet expected to crash down on us at home, work and at play in the coming years. As a sector, mobile applications – the software and middle-ware that powers wireless devices and networks – is booming. Rogers, Telus and others just forked out nearly $4.3 billion for rights on Canada’s newly fat-and-flirty wireless spectrum. It’s probably not an accident that public policy, private capital and personal penchant for hip-borne bling have converged at this point. The time is nigh for a market disruption. You in?
Here’s a quick look at what it takes to play in the world of mobile technology, via snapshots of four homegrown companies working to change the way the wandering world lives, works and spends.
Challenge one: make the mobile application work. It’s tougher than it sounds. Let’s say you code a nice little game of hangman and want to get it out to every hip on the planet. There’s not a carrier in the world that will let HangHip (patent pending) on their network unless the application has first been strenuously beta-tested – a mind-splitting process of testing and tweaking that every piece of commercial software must undergo before deployment.
Challenge two: there are more than 1,000 different mobile devices worldwide, two or three times that figure if you include regional model variations. Each device could be running on one of a dozen or more popular operating systems and transferring data over the networks of hundreds of carriers. So deploying an application to every device worldwide means potentially thousands of beta-testing projects to deliver quality to each user, all before HangHip ever sees the light of day.
Think of Calgary-based Mob4hire as a beta-broker to the mobile world. Paul Poutanen, president and founder, explains Mob4hire’s technology as a “crowd-sourced mobile application-testing platform.” Basically, Mob4hire acts like an agency, collecting revenues to manage the delivery of beta-testing services provided by subcontractors. “You can’t really test code on one carrier’s network if you’re logged in on another, so you either have to send people there or find someone qualified who’s already in the right place to test,” says Poutanen. It’s a useful service offering to mobile applications developers because writing, compiling and deploying mobile code across a labyrinth of technology, regulations and grey-area market share ain’t easy, though Mob4hire is making it look that way. “We incorporated in September 2007,” says Poutanen. “Now, we have resources in 36 different countries and are working with eight major carriers.”
So, on the continuum of mobile applications commercialization, Mob4hire is building a home where it can help businesses sidestep the pain of mobile applications deployment.
A bit further up the supply chain, at the point where the end user is engaged, an application needs to be fast, friendly and secure in order to compete. HotButton Solutions, founded and nurtured by Jane Glendon, is a wireless business intelligence play that offers real-time data capture and decision-making analytics targeted to Big Oil and the defence industry. “It’s been a long road since 2000, but we’ve made it,” says Glendon. “Now we have a real solution to extend software applications to the field through wireless handhelds.” Big business loves the idea of mobile data capture, but worries about the implications of integrating it with older technology and data security – not an easy sales path to navigate.
But one of the interesting things to come out of the wireless spectrum auctions for Alberta users is the great likelihood that areas in the north, where the oil industry rules, will have much better mobile coverage in the near future. With a looming wave of spectrum availability, wireless business-to-business plays like HotButton represent early plunges into deep-pocketed industry sectors looking to make a major market splash.
Assuming HangHip has passed muster with beta-testers, potential clients and network lawyers, we’re now free to launch our application and monetize the mobile widget. At the end of the day, we need to cover expenses, motivate sales, fuel creativity and either make or save people a lot of money.
Calgary-based Singletouch draws on founder Marty Hilsenteger’s experience as an accountant in the construction industry to fuel its proof-is-in-the-pudding value proposition. “The construction services market has been plagued for decades with manual business processes,” he says. By contrast, Singletouch’s software “was designed from the job site in, to capture real data as decisions are being made.”
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