Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 09
Now that GPS and compasses are standard equipment in most smartphones, the rush to provide innovative location-based services is on. These are pioneering days. Beyond a few no-brainers like basic navigation, nobody knows exactly which services will get traction. The next phase of the competition between the smartphone makers like Apple, RIM, and Nokia will be for the hearts and minds of the location-based service creators.
One of the industry pioneers is John Ziskind, co-founder and CEO of ZOS Communications. Ziskind honed his competitive edge as an Americas Cup sailor, where he lived and breathed GPS pinging to keep the boats on track. ZOS Communication's core technology is server software called the ZOS engine, which integrates location and other data and delivers it real time to mobile devices via wireless networks.
The company's first service, launched a month ago, is Zhiing, a location-based messaging service for consumers. Using an instant-messaging-like interface, people can send and get turn-by turn directions to a location and information about what's nearby. Ziskind also plans services for businesses and government agencies. For instance, a Rochester ambulance company is testing the technology for use in locating victims fast.
Ziskind and his colleagues had some big decisions to make as they developed their technology and services. Chief among them was which smartphone platforms should they design services for. In the end, they did the incredibly hard thing of writing services for all of the major platforms: RIM, iPhone, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. Most startups will probably pick two or three, for starters.
Ziskind's experience with RIM shows just how willing the big players are to provide help for promising young startups. ZOS chose RIM as its primary development platform because of its dominant share of the enterprise smartphone market. It took about six months of persistent calling for Ziskind to get RIM's attention. ""I'm relentless," he says. "You've got to be if you want to participate in something like the Americas Cup." But finally he broke through and has developed what he thinks of as a partnership with RIM. His engineers get to tap directly in to RIM's product development engineers, and ZOS got early access to RIM's Blackberry Push technology. The result of all of this collaboration, Ziskind says, is super-accurate positioning.
ZOS has cleared its first hurdle. It has its basic technology built and has launched its first consumer service. An enterprise service is due out later this summer.
Now Ziskind is looking for venture funding. (The company got this far with angel money.) If Ziskind goes after venture capitalists with the relentlessness he pursued the smartphone makers, he shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 02
Practically any developing nation with more than an iota of applicable resources and economic ambition wants to put itself on the global IT map. After all, India showed what the combination of talented young people, Internet access, and reasonable broadband data communications tariffs can do for a country's self esteem and GDP growth. Egypt, it turns out, is making a particularly aggressive play for attention. I met recently with Tarek Kamel, Egypt's minister of Communications and Information Technology. He gave me an earful about Egypt's plans and ambitions. And this isn't just talk. The country is starting to get traction--and has put a foundation in place that could lead to some pretty significant progress a few years down the road. Egypt's ambition is nothing less than to be the IT hub for Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
Continue reading "Egypt's Bid for Global Technology Relevance"
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 29
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. It took a big step toward universal accessibility today when it launched a program in Uganda aimed at bringing information to poor rural and urban dwellers via mobile phones. Working with Grameen Foundation and MTN, the big African mobile carrier, Google has begun offering a handful of services that combine text messaging, search technologies, and databases full of locally relevant information. "We believe that finding information shouldn't require a computer," says Joseph Mucheru, head of Google's operations in sub-Saharan Africa. Richard Mwami, public access manager for MTN Uganda, says: "This will help solve a great need at the bottom of the pyramid." This project is a prime example of smart people scoping out a problem thoroughly and coming up with a technology and service solution that fits the needs and economics of a poor community. Bravo!
Continue reading "Google's Values at Work in Africa"
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 26
I'm going to be on vacation until July 7. I'm posting a couple of items in advance, but will not be able to attend to comments until I come back. Our technology security policies make it hard to get access from the road.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 25
The tech industry used to be full of colorful and dynamic CEOs. Not so much anymore. That makes it much less fun to be a tech industry reporter. I was reminded of this falloff when Sir Richard Branson visited BusinessWeek this week. Probably 30 BusinessWeek reporters, editors, art directors, and interns packed a conference room and there was a buzz of excitement before the brash ("Screw it, let's do it," is his business motto) businessman made his entrance 15 minutes late. Branson did not disappoint. He was alternatively funny, provocative, charming, and slightly too self-satisfied.
Continue reading "Richard Branson: Where Have All the Colorful Tech CEO's Gone?"
