Innovator pitch #5: Scalado

Scalado CTO Sami Niemi ramped up the wow factor by demonstrating its advanced mobile-based imaging technology, which he said is already implemented in about 400 million devices worldwide. The solution aims to solve problems such as “shutter lag,” and Niemi demonstrated added features such as instant zoom, and forwards and backwards streaming. Despite the success of the technology in handsets to date, Niemi said the Sweden-based company was now focusing on ramping up its profile in the operator space. “We need more operator penetration – they need to know this technology exists,” he said.

Innovator pitch #4: Novarra

Scott Cotter of Novarra said the company’s offering provides a “distributed approach” to mobile widgets by using a server that repackages widgets to send to native device platforms. He claimed this would enable operators to overcome fragmentation and push widgets across their device portfolio. “We’re never going to see ubiquity… so fragmentation needs to be addressed,” Cotter said. He added that the product was a white-label offering targeted at operators, handset vendors and other application platforms. He claimed the solution would add at least US$1 in incremental revenue per subscriber per month.

Innovator pitch #3: AcCells

Israel-based AcCells is the first to pitch in the ‘carrier infrastructure or VAS platform.’ COO Eduardo Shoval described the solution as a mobile identification device that had a “limitless” number of applications, including access control, ticketing, money transfer, ATM and point of sale. However, he said the company would focus initially on m-commerce, recently announcing a deal with India’s mChek, a mobile payments platform. Shoval said, AcCells represents a “new paradigm” in contactless technology that could replace existing NFC and SMS solutions, which he criticised as not being either fast enough or secure enough. He estimated that the market for the solution was worth some US$2.5 billion.

Innovator pitch #2: Multiplied Media

Next up is Canadian-based company Multiplied Media represented by its CEO, Tony Bristol. Nominated for its ‘Poynt’ search application, Bristol showcased the application working to find a Thai restaurant and book tickets in a cinema in London using Google maps. He noted that Poynt is one of the first apps to launch on Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry app store, and has already been downloaded 0.5 million times by BlackBerry users in North America, the UK and Germany, and is available to around 9 million users in total. Around 10% of users use the app every day, he added. Asked by one of the judging panel about the application’s data usage demands, Bristol said that a typical search used about 3KB.

Innovator pitch #1: Solaiemes

Juan Mateu Mullor, CEO of Solaiemes, was the first to pitch to the mobile innovation judging panel this morning. Mullor described the Solaiemes proposition as a way to offer services such as IVR customer care applications to support areas such as mobile banking. He noted that the platform would avoid the use of mobile applications on a device, enabling it to target “mass-market” mid-tier handsets. He estimated the market for mobile based IVR (or “vocal browsing” as he called it) alone to be worth around US$300 million a year. He outlined three routes to market. 50% of sales would be direct to consumers via a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, 40% via infrastructure (i.e.: direct to operators or banks), and 10% via services.

Keynote: Operators must become poker players to harness the mobile innovation opportunity, says Telefonica

Operators must shift from being chess players to poker players in order to embrace mobile innovation, Telefonica’s Carlos Domingo (EVP, Internet & Digital R&D, Telefonica) told delegates in Barcelona this morning in his opening keynote. “Operators today must be able to bluff and put the money up front,” he said, noting that the “predictable chess-like moves” that has characterised the mobile industry’s approach to mobile innovation to date were no longer valid. Domingo outlined a number of new approaches regarding “openness” that operators such as Telefoncia needed to address, including creating a two way relationship with consumers, and a drive toward partnerships with start-ups, universities and larger corporations. “It’s not just about forming partnerships with people like Nokia, it’s about partnering with non-traditional segments such as the auto industry and banking,” Domingo said, noting Telefonica’s partnerships with the likes of Seat and Spanish bank La Caixa.

However, Domingo noted that this open approach to innovation does not mean “you have to kill internal R&D” and noted that the network remained one of the operators’ biggest assets. He cited innovation as one way operators could “win the battle” with the new software and internet companies that were entering the mobile space in areas such as app stores, but only if they change their mindset. “Time to market must be shorter otherwise we can’t compete with those from a software / internet background,” he said. Asked how innovative start-ups at this year’s event could pitch their solutions to Telefonica, Domingo said simply: “Email me.”

Video: CooTek discusses 2009 Grand Prix win

In anticipation of this week’s event, the GSMA’s Bill Gajda and Andy McGuire discuss the objectives behind the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix, including a case study of the 2009 winner, CooTek, a manufacturer of soft keyboards for touchscreen devices. See the video clip below:

Only a week to go to Barcelona …

The GSMA’s Mobile Innovation EMEA event takes place next week as part of the inaugural HiT Barcelona World Innovation Summit, an event focusing on innovation across three industry sectors: telecoms, cleantech and healthcare. In each case, the event aims to introduce business leaders and investors to the hottest new start-up and entrepreneurs.

In the case of telecoms, the event will showcase the ten nominees selected as part of the EMEA leg of the year-long GSMA’s Mobile Innovation ‘Grand Prix.’ The competition – now in its fifth year – gives the nominees a chance to pitch their business to both the mobile industry and the investment community. Two overall winners, selected by a panel, will progress is to the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix global final at Mobile World Congress next year.

The award has proven to be a springboard to success for innovative new mobile players. For example, Spinvox, the winner of the inaugural GSMA Mobile Innovation award in 2006, has subsequently seen its pioneering voice-to-text conversion technology adopted by numerous major mobile operators around the world. The most recent winner, CooTek, a manufacturer of soft keyboards for touchscreen devices, will be speaking in Barcelona next week.

This year’s ten nominees in EMEA are divided into five categories and are as follows:

Consumer Application or Service

Solaiemes (Spain): The Madrid-based company has been nominated for its AVISG (Agnostic Visual Information Server Gateway), a platform for improving mobile customer care and enterprise resource management
Multiplied Media (Canada): Location-based specialist Multiplied Media is the developer of the Poynt mobile local search application, a free local search tool that connects users to businesses, movie theatres and retailers

Embedded Mobile or Device-centric Technology

Scalado (Sweden): The company, a mobile graphics specialist, has been nominated for its SpeedTags camera Solution. Scalado already lists the top five tier one mobile vendors among its licensees
IDENT Technology (Germany): IDENT has been nominated 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

Carrier Infrastructure or VAS Platform

AcCells (Israel): The company’s mobile identification device (mID) is located at the point of sale and serves as an identification device which identifies users by their mobile handset and connects them to a mobile network
Novarra (USA): Novarra is nominated for its widgets solution, part of its mobile Internet product suite for operators and internet brands

Enterprise Application or Service

DeviceAnywhere (USA): The company, formerly known as Mobile Complete, is a privately-held, remote mobile application testing company headquartered in California. Its solution provides remote testing access to 1,500 mobile handsets via the Internet
Apisphere (USA): A location-based mobile specialist, Apisphere enables companies to reach customers with ‘location-smart’ messages

Product Enabling a Greener World

GreenFire Technologies (USA): The company is nominated for its wirefree technology that claims to fully power mobile devices within 60 seconds
Electro Power Systems (Italy): An Italian designer and manufacturer of fuel cell systems for power backup, which has technology platform called Electro3, targeted specifically at the mobile sector

All the nominees will be presenting their solutions at Barcelona, both on the showfloor and during formal presentations to the industry experts over the two days of the conference. The two winners will be announced on the afternoon of the second day.

Click here to see the full agenda. Keep an eye on this blog for live reporting from the event or follow us via Twitter at http://twitter.com/GSMAInnovation