Grand Prix EMEA Tournament winners announced

The GSMA has today unveiled IDENT Technologies and Electro Power Systems as the winners of the EMEA leg of the 2010 Mobile Innovation Grand Prix competition. The two firms were crowned, from a field of 10, as winners at the GSMA’s Mobile Innovation EMEA Event, which was held as part of the inaugural HiT Barcelona World Innovation Summit that took place in Barcelona, Spain this week.

Germany’s IDENT was been nominated as part of the Embedded Mobile or Device-centric Technology category for its ULPP Technology (Ultra Low Power Proximity) initiative, a patented technology that claims to extend the lifetime of a device by up to five times. While Electro Power Systems, an Italian designer and manufacturer of fuel cell systems for power backup, was nominated as part of the Product Enabling a Greener World category, for it solution Electro3 a technology platform, targeted specifically at the mobile sector.

“IDENT and Electro Power Systems are addressing real pain points in the mobile industry. They are deserving winners across the categories and we look forward to seeing them compete again as finalists at the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress next year,” read a statement made by the judging panel.

“Driven by an impressive entrepreneurial spirit and a desire for technical excellence, it’s clear there are some outstanding opportunities ahead for these highly innovative companies. Our congratulations to the winners and all those who took part. The GSMA would also like to thank HiT Barcelona for hosting such a successful show and we look to forward to our ongoing partnership and next year’s event,” added GSMA Chief Commercial Officer Bill Gajda.

As Global Finalists for the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix EMEA Tournament, IDENT Technology and Electro Power Systems have won the right to compete against other regional Mobile Innovation Global Finalists for the 2010 GSMA Mobile Innovation Grand Prix, and the winner will be named at the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards ceremony at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next February.

Adriano Marconetto, co-founder and CEO of Electro Power Systems, Stefan Donat, CTO of IDENT Technology and Andy McGuire, GSMA (from left)

Mobile innovation in action: embedded devices and financial services

Andy Zimmerman, Accenture and Tim Attinger, Visa (from left)

The final keynote session at this year’s event focused on two key areas at the forefront of mobile innovation, embedded devices and mobile payments. In a presentation on embedded devices, Accenture’s Andy Zimmerman outlined extensive research that the firm has done in the space and highlighted a number of early success stories featuring embedded connectivity. These included Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and the Life Fitness cross trainer. Zimmerman noted that Accenture’s research had found that consumers were interested in companies that support multiple devices, but warned that customer care was also vitally important consideration in the embedded world.

Meanwhile, Tim Attinger, global head of product development at payments giant Visa, suggested that Visa was a perfect example of “how to grow a network business model.” He said that, while the majority of its customers were still credit card-based, increasingly account holders were in areas such as mobile. He outlined a number of key Visa mobile payment initiatives under way around the world, including those in India and Malaysia, and its new suite of payment applications for Google’s Android platform. However, he added that the mobile money opportunity was more about than just enabling payments and could offer a range of other value-added services, including delivering coupons, enabling alerts and point-of-sale services.

SpinVox: a mobile innovation success story…

Daniel Doulton, co-founder and chief strategy officer of former Global Mobile Innovation Award winner SpinVox, opened his address by stating that he had sat behind Grace Jones on the flight to Barcelona yesterday. She is the very definition, Doulton said, of a “true innovator.” Doulton said that winning the award in 2006 had been instrumental in SpinVox successfully shifting from being a mere “moment” in innovation to a true mobile innovation story. He cited a number of factors that have underpinned the company’s success, most notably a commitment to simplicity and reliability.

Today, Doulton said that SpinVox’s speech conversion technology has proven to be a genuine game-changer. “We’re all about voice 3.0 and monetising voice as content; if we can converge voice and messaging we change the game,” he said. However, he warned that the path to success had not been without some significant shifts in strategy that has seen SpinVox change its business model a number of times. Currently, SpinVox is positioning itself as a “standard network feature,” a strategy mirrored in its landmark deal with Telefónica in Latin America announced yesterday that has seen its user base reach 100 million. The next phase, Doulton said, will see the firm look to convert lots of different types of new content, including in areas such as social networking and Internet search.

Keynote: Open platforms the key to handset innovation, says HTC

Opening the second morning, Florian Seiche, vice president of HTC Europe, outlined in his keynote address how the handset vendor became an early investor in Google’s Android platform as part of its commitment to smartphone innovation. HTC has been investing in Android for three years, Seiche said, and the vendor is responsible for two of the very first smartphones based on the platform, the HTC Dream (better known as the T-Mobile G1) and the HTC Magic. Seiche said that the strategy was a plan to capture part of the burgeoning open-source mobile operating system market. However, he admitted that building the very first phone on the platform had “not been an easy task.” But he dismissed fears that the proliferation of open platforms could lead to market fragmentation. “All the open platforms are winners because they are building a larger market share,” he said.

Seiche added that HTC had shifted its strategy recently from an “engineering-centric model towards generating a software user experience” which put the mobile Internet at the heart of the device. He added that the vendor was also focussing on developing widget-based interfaces into its handset designs based around a “zero click, zero wait” end user proposition. In a demonstration concluding his presentation, Seiche showcased an application that recorded location data (such as addresses and directions) alongside a cameraphone picture to create a so called “footprint” or “postcard” of the location.

SpinVox scores major Telefónica deal

SpinVox, the very first winner of the GSMA’s Global Mobile Innovation Award in 2006, said today it has won its biggest operator contract so far, with Telefónica set to roll out its Voice Message Conversion System (VMCS) across 13 Latin American countries from the second half of this year. The automatic speech-to-text conversion service is available on five continents, and the Latin American roll-out follows Telefónica Movistar’s launch of the service in Chile in October 2008. SpinVox claims that the addition of Telefónica Movistar’s remaining Latin American operations – Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela – as well as the huge market of Brazil (via Vivo, Telefónica’s joint venture with Portugal Telecom), now has the potential to attract around 125 million users.

“This deal takes us global,” Daniel Doulton, chief strategy officer and co-founder of SpinVox, told Mobile Business Briefing. Doulton added that the Telefónica contract takes the vendor’s total number of network wins to over 25, with plans to hit over 30 “early next year.” In a statement today, SpinVox talked up its status as “the only speech-to-text service in the world available in six languages – Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese and Italian.” Development is also underway to offer other languages, such as Arabic and Russian. Doulton described the deal as “landmark,” citing not only Telefónica’s reputation as a tier one operator but also the potential of the Latin American market to help Telefónica turn speech into major, billable revenue to deliver an immediate impact on ARPU.

SpinVox’s CSO noted that voicemail is not ubiquitous in Latin America as it is in other regions of the world, and the company’s service will be provided by default to Telefónica’s users. “Our service helps operators in this challenging climate, monetising what would be failed calls,” he said. The Telefónica deal builds on a US$100 million round of funding secured by the UK-headquartered company in March last year, with the vendor not ruling out the need for further investment. “We could go to the public markets or down the private equity route,” commented Doulton, adding, however, that SpinVox will “burst through the USD100 million [revenue] barrier in the next year.”

Innovator pitch #10: Electro Power Systems

The final contender to pitch to the panel was Adriano Marconetto, co-founder and CEO of Electro Power Systems, an Italian designer and manufacturer of fuel cell systems for power backup, which has a technology platform targeted specifically at mobile basestation sites. Marconetto said the product was the first self-rechargeable fuel cell system that can work in the event of grid failure. A rack mountable solution with no moving parts, the solution is being targeted at both existing and new deployments. Marconetto said that the company was focussing initially in its “home market” of Europe, but said the product was even more relevant to emerging markets where theft from sites can be a major problem. “This is a ‘nice to have’ in Europe but a ‘must have’ for emerging markets,” Marconetto said. The company also claims to have secured the largest ever order for fuel- system back-up in Europe’s telecoms sector.

Innovator pitch #9: GreenFire Technologies

Jitu Batra, CEO of GreenFire Technologies was the first nominee in the “Product enabling a greener world” category to present to the panel. In a bold claim, Batra said that company had developed a docking station that could power a mobile device in less than 60 seconds using a variety of charging technologies, including solar power. GreenFire has developed versions of the docking station for office use, home use and for in-car usage, Batra said. A travel version (i.e. that someone could use while roaming abroad) was also in the pipeline. Batra was tight-lipped on the underlying technology used, noting only that “we use existing technologies but bring them together in a smart way.” The firm’s prototype is compatible with a BlackBerry smartphone.

Innovator pitch #8: Apisphere

Next up was another US-based company, Apisphere, a specialist in what it calls “location-smart” solutions. Presenting to the judging panel, Apisphere’s Kristal Pollack outlined a number of use cases for the technology, including an application that lets companies track sales executives via salesforce.com; a traffic-alert app, a system that delivers SMS coupons when a individual is within range of the promoter (currently being used by a Las Vegas casino); and an application to track pets via a GPS on their collar. She said that all the examples were developed in a matter of days. The technology is currently limited to a thin client on a smartphone, and Pollack stated that the next stage for the company was to access operator location-based data. The offering is currently compatible with Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry platforms.

Innovator pitch #7: DeviceAnywhere

First up in the afternoon is David Bailey, CEO of California-based DeviceAnywhere, a company that claims to make it easier for developers to work with the fast-growing mobile app store market. Bailey said that the firm hosts about 2,000 different devices, which means developers do not have to source the handsets themselves. Using the company’s Proof Center software, Bailey said, DeviceAnywhere is able to significantly shorten the time it takes to get new applications to market across the various app store platforms, by improving communications between developers and the platform-owners during the testing process.

Innovator pitch #6: IDENT technology

The last pitch of the morning session was delivered by Stefan Donat, CTO of Germany’s IDENT Technology. Donat said the company’s solution provided an alternative to the power-hungry display screens used in handsets today, which he claims can often account for around 40% of a device’s power consumption. IDENT uses an ultra-low-power proximity (ULPP) detection technology (which it has branded as ‘SKINPLEX’) that measures changes in sensor capacity. He demonstrated how the technology could turn a display screen on or off by using intelligent sensoring, e.g. by distinguishing between if the device was being held for use or being carried in a pocket. The product is currently a prototype and aims to be on the market within a year.