Middle-earth tech-cos to Showcase at Telexpo 2004

Middle-earth tech companies to showcase their expertise at Telexpo 2004

26 February, 2004. Five innovative Kiwi companies will showcase their innovative high-tech solutions at Telexpo 2004, the massive telecommunications expo held in Brazil next month.

Held in Sao Paulo annually, Telexpo (02-05 March) is recognised as the most significant information and communications technology trade shows for companies selling into the burgeoning South American market.

As the largest trade show of its kind in the southern hemisphere, it is expected to attract around 380 exhibitors and more than 50,000 visitors over the four days. Exhibitors and attendees include the biggest communications companies in the market as well as numerous players in business and government

New Zealand trade commissioner to Brazil William Wattie, said with the expected improvement in the Brazilian economy this year it is time Kiwi companies took their wares into this market.

He said New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is able to help Kiwi companies looking to break into the market.

“Brazil’s imports alone are projected to increase by US$10 billion this year to $58 billion, providing opportunities for New Zealand exporters,” Mr Wattie said.

“We are helping New Zealand companies achieve success in this market in the areas of meat processing, agritech products and telecommunications.”

The companies showcasing their products at Telexpo are all smart players in the telecommunications area, offering products and services ranging from two-way radio systems to SMS and texting to banking and marketing applications.

The companies attending Telexpo are 4RF, Tait Communications, Run the Red, Datasquirt and Bulletin Wireless. All are based in Wellington with the exception of Tait Communications which is based in Christchurch.

Each company has demonstrated success in their markets and is viewing the combined showcase at Telexpo as an opportunity to inject some group strength into the market, said Mr Wattie.

“Tait Electronics is already well established in Brazil and its efforts have helped bring New Zealand’s innovations in wireless technology to the attention of companies in Brazil.

“Brazil’s telecommunications market is highly competitive and the industry is keen to take advantage of technology that gives them a competitive edge.”

Scott Wattie, chairman of the Wireless Data Forum, New Zealand’s industry association in this burgeoning communications space, said the strength of New Zealand’s development environment has produced companies that will easily be able to foot it in global markets.

“The love affair New Zealanders have with their cell phones has made this an excellent market for developing great wireless applications.”

“In the trunked mobile radio area both Tait and 4RF are already leaders and the customers they have gained around the world show how New Zealand has competency in this space as well,” said Scott Wattie.

William Wattie said the expo provides a good opportunity to get some real momentum in the market, especially as foreign affairs and trade minister Phil Goff foreign affairs is speaking at the trade show.

EDITOR’S NOTES: TELEXPO COMPANY PROFILES

4RF Communications Limited

Wellington-based 4RF Communications engineer high-performance, point-to-point fixed wireless access solutions that extend Internet, voice and data connectivity.

Their Aprisa™ family of digital radios provide transport solutions for communication networks where a wired infrastructure is not economically viable, is technically infeasible because of the terrain, or is unsustainable with a low-subscriber base.

The products are used in rural fixed telecommunication, fixed and cellular mobile radio networks, private, emergency service and defence networks, LAN/WAN, telemetry, SCADA, teleprotection, signalling, monitoring and control applications.

They deliver superior RF performance and class-leading spectral engineering, and may be found integrated into networks in Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, UK, Slovenia, Poland, Kuwait, Botswana, South Africa, Mauritius, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, the Pacific, New Zealand and Brazil.

Aprisa radios feature very tight channel spacing that makes more efficient use of available radio spectrum, which is extremely valuable in areas where spectrum is limited.
4RF has recently opened offices in the UK, Dubai, Singapore and Miami to support their channel partners and emerging new business opportunities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas following the launch of the Aprisa XE radio at ITU Telecom World 2003 in Geneva.

Operating in the 300 MHz, 400 MHz and 1400 MHz bands, Aprisa XE is a compact linking solution delivering up to 16 Mbps capacity over distances up to 100 kilometers. It features customer-configurable ‘plug-and-play’ interface cards that enable a myriad of interface options and allow a range of network elements to be managed using the embedded 4RF SNMP network element management application.

Contact: Mathew Hanson 021 650 540

www.4rf.com

Run The Red Limited

Run The Red is a leading New Zealand mobile enabler servicing the information and entertainment industries.

It makes a range of products that enable mobile carriers and business to drive revenue through the use of text based mobile phone applications. Among its customers are banks, mobile phone operators and media companies.

Ben Northrop, Run The Red director, said it is already in discussions with a Brazilian Wireless games developer who hopes to capitalise on the country’s love of soccer, and its 20 million mobile phone customers.

Run The Red has taken the system is designed for the Americas’ Cup and redesigned it as an interactive gaming engine for soccer. Called REDPlay it can be set up for any number of games.

Mr Northrop said in addition to this kind of application the company is looking at mobile banking applications as well. It is in negotiations with a number of banks in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Run The Red’s clients operate in a wide range of sectors including: banking and finance, mobile operators and media companies.

Its mobile banking product, MBank, is currently being trailed by a leading UK bank and expects to roll it out the UK, Australia and New Zealand by mid 2004.

Run The Red’s Interactive SMS Game Engine has been used successfully by Telecom Mobile New Zealand to support its sponsorship of the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The campaign generated over 600,000 SMS messages in 4 months from a player base of 9,000.

For Mobile Carriers who are looking to increase their SMS average revenue per user Run The Red offers an Interactive Game Engine that can be adapted for numerous sporting fields (i.e. soccer, rugby, hockey, tennis). Unlike traditional single player SMS games, its product allows the ‘user’ to challenge friends and the system, as well as bet collected points against actual sporting events.

MBank, Run The Red’s Mobile Banking Solution is for financial institutions who are looking for ways to lower the cost of existing helpdesk costs (i.e. free-calling centers), gain a competitive edge over other banks and provide customers with a 24/7 method of performing daily banking requests. MBank is a secure, easy and fast way for customers to perform tasks such as request account balances, account summaries and mini statements via SMS. Customers can also request to be alerted (via a SMS ‘push’when their account is near balance, had a significant change or to receive promotional bank information.)

Contact: Ben Northrop 021 775 487

www.runthered.com.

Bulletin Wireless

Bulletin Wireless supplies text messaging solutions with a specialization in carrier billing for text services to telecommunications carriers and corporations.
It began life as a start-up called Jungle Drum which provided a range of messaging services to business and corporate customers, as well as carriers.

Recently it was bought by American company Bulletin.Net, a company that had a presence in New Zealand to service the mobile phone company known then as BellSouth.

Paul Treacy, Bulletin Wireless general manager, said the company specialises in the “middleware” between the application and the carrier’s infrastructure.

A recent win by the company saw it land a significant deal with Mannheim, the largest car auction company in the world that is based in Florida.

Mr Treacy said the project saw his company develop a system which allows Mannheim staff to process ownership details on 6000 cars a day for auction using text message applications.

Bulletin has offices in Wellington, Auckland, Sydney, London and Atlanta and the NZ operation is responsible for global sales activities and product development.

Mr Treacy said its global stance getting bigger and bigger and the objectives the company has for Telexpo is to find potential business partners who might like to manage the product in that market.

“We work on a revenue share model and would be very happy to talk to local companies on how we can work together,” said Mr Treacy.

All the company’s servers are based in New Zealand and that means business partners do not have to build infrastructure, he said.

Mr Treacy said his company offers an Enterprise Network partnership where all work together and complement each other to achieve the best benefit for individuals and the group as a whole.

Bulletin is not a consumer-focused company but instead works at the carrier and corporate level and focuses on the business and corporate end user.

Gaming and Text competitions are not Bulletin’s area of expertise as other Enterprise partners do have these skills, he said but Bulletin is able to work with carriers to ensure the transportation and billing requirements are met for an application which is essential of the application is to move forward.

Contact: Paul Treacy 04 473 2424

www.bulletinwireless.com

Tait Radio Communications

Tait Radio Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Christchurch based Tait Electronics and is responsible for sales in Africa, the Middle East, India and Latin America.

It makes sophisticated two-way radio systems from the handset to infrastructural equipment and is already a player in Latin America with revenue of around $10 million a year.

Almost 95% of Tait equipment is exported from its Christchurch, New Zealand design and manufacturing plants. Tait employs almost 1000 staff world-wide, including staff in Australia, Canada, mainland China, France, Latin America, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Europe, USA and Hong Kong.

Steve Cragg, Tait Radio Communications general manager said the company recently signed a deal with the Sao Paulo Police and is looking to repeat that success.

“We have delivered a system that is used by thousands of users,” he said.
Brazil is a big market, said Mr Cragg, and the company is using Telexpo to find more partners and deals.

The company is able to service the region from its Miami office where it has people with local language skills.

Mr Cragg said they are critical for success in the region.

Contact: Steve Cragg on 021 708 060.

www.taitworld.com

Datasquirt Limited

Datasquirt is a wireless/mobility solutions company that has been operating in the New Zealand market since 2000. Datasquirt specialises in B2B and B2C applications and has patented its Mobile Commerce Technology. The company also makes innovative mobile phone content like MMS, screensavers and wallpapers which are distributed to Telcos, Portals and Content Aggregators around the world.

Datasquirt exports its content to customers in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. A recent licensing agreement with a leading mobility technology company in the UK, Amplefuture, has enabled Datasquirt to deploy its patented mobile commerce solution TEXTCODE into this vast market. Partnering with Amplefuture has also enabled Datasquirt to supply solutions into the European market.

Datasquirt has formed a joint venture in the UK with Talkintoons (see www.talkintoons.com) to support their content development and to provide an office base in London. Export revenues are expected to be between NZ$500,000 and $2,000,000 in 2004-2005. Global distribution is already well underway with partners such as iTouch Global, End2end Technologies and MGA Music.

Datasquirt’s products include:

Textcode:
Mobile Commerce for a retail focused company with a centralised order / fulfilment process looking to increase distribution and marketing channels by engaging customers through there mobile phone. The system allows customers to order products and services for delivery via any SMS capable mobile phone and unlike many WAP or existing e-commerce based solutions provides a very low cost channel for business to sell to a customer anytime anywhere.

Movietimes:

An intuitive SMS service that allows the user to query what movies are screening at a chosen theatre and at what times, or to query what theatres a particular movie is screening at and at what times. This service is currently being developed further to allow the user to book their ticket and receive a text confirmation. In the near future payment will be able to be made via a direct debit transaction to the users bank account by means of a pin validation and/or billing direct to the mobile account.

Call Centre Console (C3):
This application allows for the customization of call centre functionality to use text as a communication channel. The C3 is integrated into the existing Internet architecture to allow both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ messaging as a means of interrogating a database to request information or simply to provide SMS communication with the end user. Deployment into some of the largest call centre operations in Australasia has enabled them to achieve significant cost savings by using text as alternative to tradition voice and Internet channels.

DataToons:
Mobile content for a mobile carrier, portal or Content Aggregator seeking innovative mobile content with high consumer appeal to generate additional revenue streams through content downloads.

Contact: Julian Smith 09 358 5878

www.datasquirt.com

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