Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) today signed an agreement with Moveo Systems to deploy the first of its kind multi-lingual human interactive airport solution at the Bengaluru International Airport by July 2010. Moveo Systems will set up easy-to-use interactive and intuitive touch panel Kiosks at strategic locations across the airport that will enhance interaction levels with passengers, making travel for them more engaging and exciting. To the frequent flyer, one of the significant additions will be this kiosks capability of issuing flight alerts via SMS.

From a passenger view point, the most critical element is readily available and interactive information. This kiosk will be that one point of contact which will provide information regarding the airport services, the various food and retail options, airlines, immigration, customs protocol and travel guidelines. Additionally, the passenger will receive live news feeds, destination, weather and city guides at the kiosk.

While benefitting the passenger with a wealth of information and engaging content, the mTracker application has been developed to capture passenger feedback, thereby enabling the airport and airlines to continually enhance performance. Multi-modal passenger and employee feedback and responses are captured and respective stakeholders are notified for resolution via both e-mail and SMS. The system also generates a rich set of analytics for benchmarking airport services across several customer defined parameters and service groups.

Sankalp Saxena, Chairman & CEO, Moveo Systems commented, “We are proud to have entered into a relationship with BIAL, the operator of the Bengaluru International Airport which is a world-class airport and also one of the busiest in the country. Our Airport Information Portal solution sets a new global benchmark for digital interactivity in touch based airport solutions. We are working together with BIAL to create a solution that would provide passengers with critical information at the same time garnering valuable feedback from them, thereby enhancing their travel experience on the whole".

"Our focus has always been on ensuring that passengers transiting through the Bengaluru International Airport experience seamless and hassle-free travel. Moveo Systems, with their next generation interactive mKiosks, has helped us achieve yet another step in that direction and will further automate and speed-up procedures. The ability of this system to provide both English and Kannada interfaces is the first of its kind across airports in India. With this new technology we hope to add a new dimension to our passengers experience by increasing engagement and stimulation to their travel”, said Marcel Hungerbuehler, CEO, BIAL.

About Moveo Systems
Moveo Systems is a provider of highly innovative next generation human interaction solutions, which deliver rich interactive multi-sensory experiences for users across both the consumer and enterprise segments. Moveo Systems is a privately held company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded in 2006, Moveo is headed by accomplished software industry veterans. For more information, visit http://www.moveosystems.com

About Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL)
BIAL is a Public Limited Company under the Companies Act formed to build, own and operate Bangalore„s Greenfield private sector-owned and operated airport – the Bengaluru International Airport. Private promoters hold a 74% stake in BIAL while the government holds the remaining 26%.

Moveo Systems, a provider of highly innovative next generation human interaction solutions, that deliver rich interactive multi-sensory experiences for users across consumer and enterprise segments, today announced that CEMA Electric Lighting, one of the leading lighting solutions companies in India, has deployed Moveo Systems’ Mobile Field Force Automation solution which enables the company to bi-directionally synchronize field data with their back-end ERP system in a reliable and secure manner to manage and constantly improve the quality of their products.

This enterprise solution from Moveo enables field technicians to capture information on product defects and categorize them across twelve (12) defect categories. The information is then transmitted over-the-air (OTA) to the customer back end ERP system to capture failure modes in field by individual product for effective monitoring of product performance & improvement. It also allows distributors to query the status of their credit notes. The solution has been deployed on a pan-India basis and will replace the traditional paper-based capture method. This mobile application will help reduce the business process cycle time from forty-five (45) days to fifteen (15) days or less – thereby representing an improvement in efficiency of over 200%.

“We were looking for innovative mobile based solutions which would enable us to rapidly capture field information, avoid manual data entry processes as well as be simple, secure and time-effective to deploy,” said Mr. Bhanu Murthy, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, CEMA Electric Lighting. “The solution from Moveo was rapidly and seamlessly integrated into our backend business process systems, empowered our field teams to submit and request information, and overall interjected greater process efficiencies and constant product quality improvements. They exceeded our expectations on all counts and delivered the solution in only eight (8) weeks,” he added.

“Today, most of the organizations have successfully implemented ERP systems at the enterprise level but have not yet fully harnessed the mobile platform as a secure and efficient data exchange onramp into their systems. Clearly there are further process improvements which can be attained which translate to efficiencies in both time and cost,” said Sankalp Saxena, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Moveo Systems. “CEMA Lighting is a testament to the effectiveness of using the Moveo Intelligent Field Force Automation solution. We have successfully delivered a high-value mobile solution to CEMA Lighting that enables their field resources to submit and/or access critical enterprise data as and when required,” he added.

CEMA Electric Lighting is a leading lighting solutions company with a major presence in the Home and Professional Lighting segments in India. The company manufactures and markets a wide variety of lighting products including Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL), Tubular Fluorescent Lamps (FTL), High Intensity Discharge Lamps (HID) and Metal Halide Lamps (MH), Domestic & Commercial Light Fixtures. CEMA manufactures its light source and glass products at its facility in Limbasi, Gujarat. With its Sales and Marketing headquarters in Bangalore, CEMA operates 15 regional/branch offices in India. Visit http://www.cemalighting.com

About Moveo Systems
Moveo Systems is a provider of highly innovative next generation human interaction solutions, which deliver rich interactive multi-sensory experiences for users across both the consumer and enterprise segments. Moveo Systems is a privately held company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded in 2006, Moveo is headed by accomplished software industry veterans. For more information, visit http://www.moveosystems.com

All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners

For further Information pls call / mail:
Manish Sharma, +91 98450 32618, manish@voilacomm.net

1) Which of the eight teams do you think will win the IPL 2 Series and why do you think so?

Delhi Daredevils probably has the most balanced combination and a major contender for IPL Season 2. The induction of five international players this season has added strength of the side that reached the semi-final last year. The team has the best opening pair in the world in Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, both of whom are in excellent form.

Australia's latest sensation David Warner is the biggest catch for Daredevils this season. Kiwi skipper Daniel Vettori and India spinner Amit Mishra will be a vital part of the team. The team has legendary Glenn McGrath, Farveez Maharoof of Sri Lanka, Collingwood, Dirk Nannes, and Ashish Nehra that will provide strength to the bowling line-up.

2) Can you kindly narrate an anecdote or some interesting personal experience that highlights your association with cricket? {it could be your cricket experience during school/college days}

I grew up in the Philippines and played a lot baseball and tennis. It was great when a few passionate Indians living there started a cricket team and I jumped at the opportunity to be part of this initiative. What started as an ad-hoc bunch of individuals grew into a strong and dedicated team. We found other teams - primarily Embassy teams and this started our cricket league in the Philippines. There were parallels between baseball and cricket - and this helped me excel at the game. However, the one thing that took me some time to adjust to was not throwing the bat and running (like in baseball) every time one hit the ball!

3) At the organizational level, do you think Cricket helps connect with people in informal way and cut-across teams/divisions? {You could talk about cricket teams in your own company}

3) Absolutely, at the organizational level the game of cricket brings together concepts of effective teamwork across multi-disciplinary individuals, a sense of comaraderie amongst team members and a common mission of winning!

4) Who is your favourite player and why do you admire him? Any management lessons you would like to draw and build an analogy?

It would have to be Sachin Tendulkar - a player of immense ability and talent. Management analogies - Sachin is passionate about the sport, brings a hugh degree of strategy and innovation to every match, motivates and inspires team members with his skill at the game and leaves his fans (customers in our case) absolutely delighted with the results! These attributes resonate strongly with Team Moveo! Along with the answers, please do send us a picture of yours, preferably with you holding a cricket bat!

Author: Sankalp Saxena
Chairman & CEO, Moveo Systems

Mobile phones have rapidly become an essential and integral part of our daily lives. We feel as if a part of us is missing if we forgetfully leave our mobile phones at home – so much so that many times we go back to retrieve this pint sized gadget in order to make ourselves ‘complete’ again! No other technology has, so quickly and pervasively, become an integral part of our ‘being’ in the last decade or the preceding years. Approximately 4 billion people today are touched by a cell signal, and cell phone penetration has exceeded 2 billion connections globally. It continues to grow at a mind-boggling speed. This revolution is very apparent in India itself as we add approximately 15 million new connections a month! Gone, thankfully, are the days where one would submit the application for a telephone and wait, wait, wait, and wait (you get the point) for over a year for the connection and the telephone department personnel to come and install the landline instrument at the carefully selected spot in your house! Prasad batoo – phone ka connection mil gayaa!!

An often-asked question is where is all this headed? Captured below are my thoughts on what direction the mobile movement might take in the years ahead. I am not by any means an expert, pundit, or guru, but instead I am simply an avid user of this technology medium as well as an avid developer of mobile-centric applets, which push the envelope further on what we can do with our pint sized gadgets.

For starters, we are about to witness the birth of our Global Mobile Identities (GMIs), as the paradigm of number portability will extend well beyond a given geography and telco combination. Our GMIs will be as ubiquitous as our email IDs are today, and the concept of ‘changing’ our mobile numbers based on what country or city we presently live in will (and needs to) become obsolete. Our GMIs, each of which is as unique as our phone numbers are today, will move with us as we shift from one town to another or from one country to another. Furthermore, our GMIs need not be numerically indexed and can be a combination of both alphanumeric characters – as is the case with our email IDs. Ultimately our email IDs and our GMIs can plausibly converge into one, and based on the medium by which a user is initiating a communication request – he or she can select whether it should be a voice call, an email, or simply an SMS. The telco provider with whom we provision our service in the new location will simply register our GMI in his service registry and we will never have to give out a new phone number to our friends again! Cellular networks will continue to be intelligent enough to ensure billing engines calculate call charges based on our GMI roaming patterns.

The next paradigm shift that will take place will be indexed to the widespread provisioning of high-speed over-the-air (OTA) networks – like WiMax, 3G, and 4G. Mobile phone usage will no longer be ‘bucketed’ into voice or data buckets with a host of confusing monthly plans or access costs. Instead, plans will converge into one single digital data bucket. Monthly service provisioning will be linked to plans sold around total data usage per month. We will buy 1GB or 10 GB or Unlimited plans per month from telcos and will consume this across voice, value added services, mp3 downloads, mobile TV, network games, and so on. As ultimately all provisioned services on mobile devices are nothing more than digital bits and bytes being moved to and from your device. The digital nature of mobile services will blur the divide between a simple voice call and a multi-player network game being played by five friends across five countries. The move to convergent billing on total data used per month will also provide significant revenue upside for the telcos, as they will see ARPU increase exponentially. Without such a catalyst telcos, understandably, might not want to move in the digital bucket direction.

The widespread integration of GPS chipsets along with significantly improved digital mapping information will vastly improve the usability and adoption of location based services. Imagine landing in Paris and using your mobile phone to locate directions to the Louvre and then to a fabulous Indian restaurant for dinner in the evening – all from wherever you happen to be in the city at that moment. Else, imagine visiting San Francisco for the first time and meeting your friend at a nice restaurant ‘somewhere’ in the vicinity of Pier 39 and receiving step-by-step directions to the location of your friend’s phone. This would of course be based on his or her accepting your mobile request to provide your phone with their location – somewhat akin to pairing two devices via Bluetooth but getting well beyond a 10 m radius. Paper maps, in which we have to first find a common point of reference to start charting directions, might be driven to obsolescence faster than we imagine.

Device designs will also radically morph, as mobile phones will become adaptive modular gadgets. Devices will seamlessly integrate into our clothing, become wristband accessories, or be simply hidden in our ears (like our current Bluetooth headsets). The ‘mobile cores’ could also interconnect into other mobile modular components depending on the task at hand. Take, for example, playing a multi-player network game (5 friends, 5 countries again) – for this ‘experience’ you might want to snap your mobile core module (tiny component) into a larger portable LCD format – say, a 5” or 7” LCD module that will come with its own high capacity battery and game away to glory. Once you are done gaming, you would simply snap out the core mobile module, place it in your ear, and use the native voice activated menus to call your friends. SMS and email messages received could, in this miniature device format, be read back by the text-to-speech (TTS) voice agent resident on your mobile core and you could simply dictate a response or opt to call the person back. You wouldn’t need to carry a 5” LCD format device all day everyday, post the gaming session with your friends, when a simple Bluetooth like mobile core would meet your usability requirements for the next several hours or even days. Furthermore, your 100 GB mobile device, with a few of the latest movies or your PowerPoint presentations, could connect wirelessly to your 50” LCD TV or projector and stream content to this device. This would be a far more conducive and useful medium to watch ‘mobile TV’ as opposed to trying to watch a TV serial on a 2.4” LCD and to con yourself into believing that straining your eyes to watch video content on a 2.4” screen is actually pleasurable. Try watching CBNC on a 2.4” LCD and see if you can read even one stock quote or chart on screen. Snap-in modular components will come in all shapes and sizes and will allow you to adaptively use your mobile device in far more innovative and multi-purpose ways than what we are accustomed to today. 

There apparently are patents already filed, which will enable one to have ‘scent-sory’ experiences via our mobile devices. Scan a barcode of a new perfume ad in the newspaper with your phone camera and voila your phone will give you a whiff of this new perfume. Your phone will come with a set of base scents preloaded into tiny cartridges and the scanned barcode would contain a predetermined recipe for mixing these base scents, in varying percentages, to give you an emulated whiff of this new perfume. The actual perfume could be far better but this approach would give you a near indicative whiff and would provide advertisers with a great new way to promote and sell their ‘scent-sory’ products!

The list of innovative uses which are currently in development and which will be introduced to mobile users goes well beyond the length of this article. I’ve included a few as food for your thought to illustrate the ubiquitous computing capabilities coming soon to the pint sized gadget we now call cell phones. Wikipedia defines ubiquitous computing as a “post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. As opposed to the desktop paradigm, in which a single user consciously engages a single device for a specialized purpose, someone ‘using’ ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems simultaneously, in the course of ordinary activities, and may not necessarily even be aware that they are doing so.” Trust me – the mobile phone is the convergent device for ubiquitous computing!

In this increasingly flattening world, rich interactivity and ability to communicate quickly and cost effectively are key requisites for success. Bangalore headquartered Moveo Systems is betting on this opportunity by using their intelligent network and service delivery platform to rapidly deliver quantifiable value to their customers. Their specialization caters the needs of Infrastructure companies, BFSI, Education, FMCG, Hospitality and a host of SMEs. Though the company has few customers in the U.S as well as in Europe, its current primary focus is India.

PRINCIPALS

Sankalp Saxena, Chairman and CEO

HEADCOUNT:52
FOUNDED: 2006
INVESTOR: The Company has raised $2.2 million in angel funding till date.

HOW THEY MAKE MONEY: Since the company is IP focused, it makes money by selling the software/solution licenses. Alongside, if customer wants a SaaS solution or a hosted instance of their applications, the company earns additional revenue too. "Revenue models could differ from customer to customer, and our flexibility on this front is also quite innovative," quips Saxena.

CLIENTELE:GVK, CavinKare, Royal Orchid, CSIA, Peppermint, Forum, Indian Bank, Featherlite and many more.

COMPETITORS: HCL, TCS and other IT service providers.

WHAT'S UNIQUE:

Let's consider rich information portal kiosk based apps. The company's target customers for this product are in the Aviation Sector, BFSI and other enterprises. These touch panels or kiosks installed in bank premises are used to provide diverse information on banking products to customers like information on loans, or opening of an account and other information. In a nutshell, Moveo's kiosks have compelling user-friendly user interfaces, are localized to several Indian languages and can be used to gain access to a host of product information, company services, provide feedback, submit forms and also send SMSes to friends and family. "By giving customers and employees access to self-service kiosk based apps, enterprises are finding they can lower their overhead costs while improving customer and employee satisfaction," claims Sankalp Saxena, Chairman and CEO. Earlier networks of largely autonomous interactive kiosks were expensive and difficult to manage and maintain. But Moveo's approach to use cutting edge application software and remote management tools to alleviate these problems turned the kiosks into efficient cost saving appliances and even profits centers. This innovative approach reduces the total cost-of-ownership (TCO) by 40percent to 60percent. Furthermore, deployment timeframes for these information portal kiosks can be as little as six to eight weeks.

For instance, apart from getting a host of airport information, passengers can also input their feedbacks about the facilities in the Chatrapathi Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) through over 60 kiosks deployed across the terminals. This aviation solution from Moveo can 'intelligently' compile, analyze the data captured in the form of feedbacks and sends the same to the department concerned so that apt action plans can be initiated by them. Interestingly, the system even gives the overall ratings in each month about a particular facility based on passenger feedback. "Our solution scalability and robustness, couple with our rapid time to value, are our strengths," states Saxena.

Moveo's Rich Interactive Application (mRIA) framework combines the robustness of Java with a highly productive Flex front-end framework for building and maintaining such expressive web applications. This product is used by one of its MNC client for capturing and analyzing sales performance data vis-à-vis individual targets on a pan India wide basis.

The company also has patent pending enterprise field force automation solution, which allows a company's field-force to interact with their back-end systems effectively (ERP, CRM,) through a secure and rich application interface.

"Strong domain knowledge and our patent pending feature rich apps are our assets. We built our IP framework in about 15 months and our robust IP based solutions give us a significant advantage in the market," says Saxena. "Furthermore, our solutions are proven in the market, secure, scalable and are rapidly configurable as per the requirements of customers," he claims.

Mumbai International Airports Private Limited (MIAL), the joint venture consortium led by GVK, signed a definitive agreement with Moveo Systems for enhancing passenger and operations experiences at the Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA).

Moveo's mobility framework will enable passengers and CSIA team members to access a host of services across the entire airport ecosystem and will be integrated across multiple backend applications thereby providing simple and easy-to-use interfaces for accessing information.
“Moveo's product footprint will enable users to discover airport services, provide feedback and will ultimately deliver mTicketing and mCheckin capabilities for airline passengers,” said Moveo Systems founder and CEO Sankalp Saxena.

MIAL expect that the innovative solutions will establish global benchmarks for mobility applications in the aviation sector across a host of services and will significantly enhance access to both critical and non-critical airport information across stakeholders.

Moveo Systems, a Bangalore based start-up developing next generation mobile solutions, today announced that Featherlite, one of India’s largest furniture manufacturing companies has deployed Moveo Systems’ Intelligent ustomer Lead Management (iCLM) solution. This solution from Moveo enables the company to synchronize and integrate all relevant information for customers across the enterprise and facilitate more effective marketing, planning, selling and servicing decisions throughout the customer life cycle. Customer requests are captured by the Moveo Systems Network Alert Messaging Engine and are intelligently routed to Featherlite for further followup.

“Building long lasting and compelling customer experiences has been one of the core strengths of Featherlite since inception,” said Mr. Manohar Gopal, Managing Director, Featherlite Products Pvt. Ltd. “The iCLM solution from Moveo enables us to extend our customer experience reach to the mobile platform thereby providing our customers with an easy to use interface to communicate with Featherlite.”

“We are delighted to have Featherlite as one of our customers,” said Sankalp Saxena, Founder and Chief-Executive Officer of Moveo Systems. “Our iCLM solution will be an integral component of all go-to-market initiatives for Featherlite and will enable customers to provide feedback on a host of product and service offerings in the market. In addition, analytics for each initiative will be provided to the Sales and Marketing teams for further review and refinement of future outbound initiatives.”

About Featherlite

Featherlite Products Pvt. Ltd. is a pioneer and one of India’s largest furniture manufacturing companies in India. A leader in innovation and style, Featherlite is the first office furniture company to start a chain of outlets for exclusive retailing of a wide variety of office furniture through its 25 exclusive showrooms in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad. It manufactures about 25,000 chairs and 7,000 workstations per month. The company’s clientele includes some of the biggest names in the corporate world like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Reliance Group, Future Group, Deloitte, Satyam Computers, Axa Insurance and Citibank to name a few.

1. How are content providers placed in the telecommunication ecosystem?

While we are witnessing high subscriber and revenue growth in India, the average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to be low. Low ARPUs, coupled with thin profit margins, have driven mobile service providers to look beyond voice-based services for generating additional revenues. Content and value added services are proven global revenue drivers for telecom operators and are growing rapidly in the Indian market as well.

2. How big is the size of the content market in India?

The availability and consumption of mobile content has seen a rapid growth in the last few years. According to a survey conducted by IAMAI and the eTechnology Group of IMRB, the mobile VAS industry in India was worth Rs. 2,850 crore at the end of 2006 and is estimated to grow at 60 percent to touch Rs. 4,560 crores by end 2007. High double-digit year on year growth is expected for the foreseeable future.

3. Can you put some lights on the value propositions of this business?

The explosive growth in the subscriber base is leading to rapid growth in the various mobile VAS offerings. 1st generation VAS products focused on ringtones, wallpapers and other such simplified offerings. Next generation VAS services, from companies like Moveo Systems, will offer rich interactive application widgets delivering compelling user experiences which will entertain, engage and inform users of activities taking place in their mobile ecosystem. Music, news, brand promotions, sports, stocks, etc. - the list continues - will draw in new subscribers with services that extend well beyond voice.

4. How are you related to the telecom industry? What kind of contents you provide?

At Moveo Systems, we build highly innovative and interactive mobile applications for both the consumer and enterprise sectors of the market. Our applications deliver compelling experience based paradigms which incorporate voice, graphics and videos in an easy to use applet which can be downloaded via any of the existing over-the-air protocols.

5. What are the key differentiators of your company?

Simply put - our people inventing next generation mobile applications that create quantifiable and sustainable value for both enterprise and consumer sector customers is our differentiated value. To be part of the Moveo “Dream Team” you have to bring both inspiration and perspiration to the equation!

6. On investment front, how much you have already invested and what are your plans for the future?

We are constantly involved in developing and commercializing the next generation of mobile solutions which continue to improve the human interaction paradigm for mobile subscribers through leading edge innovation.

On the enterprise front, for example, we have been working closely with several large blue-chip enterprise customers to develop and deploy field mobilization solutions that deliver results straight to their bottom line by drastically reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for technology based solutions.

On the funding front, we have been fortunate to raise US$2.2 million in angel funding across two rounds of investment. The capital raised will primarily be used to expand our market reach by establishing regional sales teams as well as to add bright minds to our product development team.

7. Can you elaborate on your business strategy? What kind of relations you have with the operators?

Our business strategy focuses on two key stakeholders – upstream our focus is entirely on next generation mobile applets and downstream we focus on coupling these to end subscribers via strong relationships with the telcos. We are in ongoing discussions with several Indian telcos and have also singed NDAs in place for a few key initiatives. To date, our focus has been on the GSM side of the business and we are looking at expanding our relationships into the CDMA environment as well.

8. Do you create the contents of your own or you just collaborate contents?

We have a strong “experience design” team in-house which is responsible for taking a workflow concept from paper to pilot in as short a period of time as two weeks. We are, however, equally open to collaborating with a few strategic content providers as our focus is more on the underlying product framework and functionality.  

9. Are there any bottlenecks to the content-based business model? If not why this business has not picked up yet?

Over the air (OTA) data access services continue to be the biggest bottleneck in the content based business model. Fortunately technological advances, coupled with lower price points, are helping accelerate the adoption of data access services, like GPRS, across both the incumbent subscriber base as well as with new subscribers. One additional bottleneck has been the revenue share bias which exists in the Indian market between the telcos and the content providers. Rationalization of this to a happier medium will result in a far more sustainable win-win proposition. If global trends are any indication of what is to come, then the outlook on this front is very positive.

10. How do you see the future of content providers?

To date, only ~10% of telco revenues are indexed to non-voice services. As such, there is a great untapped opportunity which exists for companies such as Moveo, to offer compelling VAS applications to end subscribers. The revenue share rationalization point from above will further help drive the diversity of mobile content in the market. Japan, with NTT DoCoMo’s iMode offering, is one of the best examples of the realization of the mobile revenue opportunities that extend well beyond voice. India can be the next big market for similar content offerings with a subscriber base potential which is approx. 5x (five times) that of the Japanese market!

Mobile advertising is set to get more inventive, interactive and personal this year. The second generation of mobile advertising in India will wow users with never-seen-before services. From welcoming messages to an offer of test drive of the latest car in the market and pull-based m-coupons, the mobile will bring new meaning to customer-satisfaction, and add "stickiness" to brand value, say industry experts. Currently, ads are relegated to SMS, m-coupons and flash messages. "Ad-on-demand, and messages such as welcoming a roaming mobile user into a new city with a short video of the top sights and things to do in that city, will soon be offered to the mobile user," said Mr. Sankalp Saxena, CEO, Moveo Systems, a Bangalore-based developer of mobile applications.
The firm has modified the ads so that even a modest handset costing Rs 8,000 will be able to display it.

Textual ads will soon give way to image and video ads. Shortcodes, which are burdened by a high error rate (up to 33 per cent of shortcode messages are garbage), need no longer be remembered. With just a click on the image of a face of the celebrity, an SMS is automatically composed to the right shortcode, with the relevant text (Yes/ No) and will be ready to send.

You could also request additional information on products right from your handset, making the advertisement work for you. With the flexibility of the mobile platform, brands retain their equity and charm, said Mr Saxena.
'Advertising on the mobile will become non-intrusive soon,' predicted Mr CVS Sharma, Head, Arc Worldwide, a Mumbaibased marketing services firm. One such example is snazzy ads replacing the wallpaper on your mobile. This would make your screen come alive. 'The response to contextual targeting and search on the mobile is expected to be good,' he added.

Depending on the user's location, the search could even dish out listed businesses in the same street - a useful service for the road warriors. Pointcasting, adding a layer of relevance to the ad and offering the customer a more useful experience are top priorities for operators, mobile application developers and advertisers. Many advertisers are realising the advantage of the mobile medium, especially its language neutrality.

Will TV advertising lose points to this rising medium? Answers vary. 'About five per cent of TV adspend will move to the mobile by FY08,' said Mr Saxena

Moveo Systems, a Bangalore-based start-up in mobile applications domain, closed its second round of funding recently. Declining to reveal the investment, the CEO, Mr Sankalp Saxena, only said that it was larger than the first. The firm was seeded with an investment totalling $1 million by patrons belonging to General Electric, IBM, Feather-Lite.

The second investment will be deployed for setting up a sales and marketing team to expand the reach of Moveo's products. The angel funding brings in three new industry sectors, and is by CEOs of large companies, all Indians. It will conclude next week, said Mr Saxena.

The firm is moving beyond m-CRM and m-coupons to bring in radical applications on the mobile such as m-money (where the ATM would transfer change to your mobile, which could be used to buy railway tickets) and traffic watch (where a Web cam would stream video to your mobile), but Moveo's application makes this possible on low-end phones, too. Moveo will be covering metros by mid 2007 with this service.

" We hope to capture 15-20 per cent of the telecom value-added services market in the next two years. The ARPU for the operators should double with the entry of such innovative applications on mobiles," said Mr Saxena.

The year-old firm has ambitious plans of adding its first global client (which will be in the financial services domain) by fiscal 2008.

Moveo Systems is working on content-enriched applications that take mobile ticketing, advertising, enterprise application integration and banking to the next level. Abhinav Singh reports The age of the next-generation mobile experience has dawned. Imagine an enterprise having hundreds of sales folk out on the field, each of them equipped with a mobile phone that supports GPRS. At the end of the day, the top brass at the headquarters want a daily sales report in a standard format that’s mostly graphical and tabular. Now these salespeople could well be stuck in a remote area where there is no Internet access. However, they key in field data on their mobiles which is immediately converted into a graphical format and sent to the head office where it is injected into the company’s ERP or SCM system, and reflected at once in the same. In case the company asks for clarifications, an enquiry goes back to the sales rep’s mobile phone and he can respond right away. The hardware in use is a regular GPRS-enabled mobile handset, not an expensive smartphone or PDA.

With cellular networks covering a much wider swathe of the country than wired Internet, and mobile phones having outnumbered the number of PCs, mobile applications like the one described above are expected to catch on. Bangalore-based Moveo Systems has developed one such application for CavinKare, a FMCG company. CavinKare expects to use this application to communicate across its entire ecosystem (consisting of the sales team, customers and distributors), drive faster time-to-market, and accelerate adoption of new products.

Says C K Ranganathan, the Chairman and Managing Director of CavinKare, “We liked the next-generation mobile experience, and are looking forward to leveraging it to enrich not only our customer and distributor interactions but also to fatten our top-line revenue growth.”

Let us take a closer look at how this technology works, as well as its applications in banks and other enterprises.

Interactive mobile applications

http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20061016/technology01.shtml 10/18/2006 This technology facilitates bi-directional communications which can be invoked from within a mobile application. The communication protocols supported are multi-modal as they span voice, data and SMS protocols, and also support all the available over-the-air delivery technologies. Explains Sankalp Saxena, Chairman and CEO of Moveo, “Our enterprise solutions allow a company’s field-force to interact with their back-end systems (ERP, CRM, etc) through an intuitive and rich application interface. Through this interface, a salesman can provide regular updates from the field for a host of key performance indicators (KPIs) mapped by his company using this solution. In the case of CavinKare, we developed a distributed fieldforce application which facilitates the regular capture of several sales KPIs. The solution is expected to extend across over several thousand users across India.”

Apps for advertisers

In India there are now almost 110 million mobile phone subscribers, and mobile channels have become an integral part of enterprise marketing and communication strategy irrespective of the size or industry vertical. Comments Saxena: “Mobile marketing offers significant opportunities for directly interacting with customers. It offers several applications for lead generation, promotions, brand-building and gaining consumer insights.” Indian mobile operators have also realised, like other mobile operators across the globe, that their average revenue per user is dropping as voice rates have come down significantly, as a consequence of which they will now have to focus on non-voice services. “Value-added services focus on repositioning a handset as an entertainer, informer, guide and an integral part of a cellular subscriber’s life,” adds Saxena. Take the case of a consumer who wants to purchase a car. He can subscribe to subscription-based mobile ads from Moveo Systems. Moveo personnel will customise the mobile to receive advertisements. Whenever there are new offers, the subscriber will be able to get all the required information at the click of a button on his mobile phone. This will be interactive in nature as the information will be generated for the subscriber in real-time. The system is in contrast to a user who sends an SMS while making an enquiry; sometimes the SMS addresses are wrong, sometimes the information is half-baked. Memorising SMS short-codes is almost as archaic as having to memorise IP addresses to access Web sites. Most users enter text URLs to access a Web site as this is far more conducive to a satisfying browsing experience than having to memorise and enter the associated IP addresses. Moveo’s solutions provide mobile users with a similar easy-to-use application interface. Continues Saxena: “We believe that advertising methods, which are driven by subscribers opting to receive content of interest, are likely to be successful. Today, people are willing to view ads if they feel the ad has something valuable to offer.” This is the principle behind infomercials on US television and opt-in marketing on the Web.

Next-generation solutions for BFSI

In the case of IT’s biggest consumer, BFSI, mobile applications can be linked to an individual’s banking account, letting him check his account balance on the mobile in detail. In the present form, bank statements that are delivered to mobile phones are not descriptive at all. They come as unformatted text rather than in an easy-todigest tabular format. Mobile banking solutions today depend on the use of bank-specific keywords coupled with SMS short-codes to send information back to depositors. This approach is error-prone, with approximately 35 percent of all messages sent to SMS shortcodes being wasted on account of either a spelling mistake or a space being omitted or the message being sent to an incorrect number. Such an approach does not scale effectively as it puts the burden entirely on the user to memorise numerous keywords and the specific associated SMS short-codes for it to function. Through next-generation mobile technology, all the data variables required for queries are mapped into the application itself. The user no longer has to memorise short-codes, which add no value whatsoever to the information received, or the experience itself. In addition, next-generation application frameworks support multiple rich-file formats which can be leveraged to transmit text, graphics and video, thereby significantly enhancing the end-user experience.

M-ticketing

Moveo Systems is also working on developing an application that will allow people to book a flight through their mobile device, and then have the ticket sent back as a barcode which can be scanned straight from the mobile device at the check-in counter. The past few years have witnessed a flurry of advancements in mobile technology, and M-ticketing is one such concept. It can help travellers save a few extra minutes at the airport as tightened security at airports and the subsequent long queues will make shaving a few minutes off travel time all the more desirable. Innovative features such as these are expected to make headway into the Indian mobile user’s life.

Moveo Systems, a Bangalore based start-up developing innovative next generation mobile solutions, today announced the deployment of its mCoupon platform in partnership with The Forum Mall, a Prestige Group enterprise.

The Forum Shopping Festival, starting from September 23, 2006 to November 1, 2006, is expected to drive well over one million footfalls and Moveo’s mCoupon technology will give Forum Mall customers access to exclusive offers on their mobile phones across a diverse set of retail establishments in the mall. Over 90 retail outlets in the Forum Mall, spanning entertainment, apparel, cinema, food, and lifestyle, are participating in this innovative mobile marketing campaign spread over Navratri, Dusshera, Diwali, Ramzaan, Id and Rajyotsava. In addition, Moveo’s platform will also provide updates to customers on the loyalty points they have accrued on their Experience Cards, the Forum Loyalty Card program being launched in conjunction with this shopping festival.

“Moveo’s next generation technology adds an exciting and innovative dimension to the Forum Shopping Festival,” said Mr. Neeraj Duggal, Vice President, Retail Development and Mall Operations, Forum Mall. “At Forum, we have always created highly compelling and rewarding customer shopping experiences and the synergistic partnership between Forum and Moveo sets a new benchmark for retail shopping experiences across India and quite possibly the world.”

“At Moveo Systems, we believe in inspiration, creativity and simplicity to define and deliver differentiated mobile experiences and this was a perfect opportunity for us to partner with The Prestige Group to deliver such innovation with the acknowledged leaders in the Retail Sector,” said Mr. Sankalp Saxena, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Moveo Systems Pvt. Ltd. “We worked with a focus on creating intuitive next generation mobile retail solutions with immediate tangible value for all stakeholders and have delivered exceptionally against this objective.”

About The Forum Mall The Forum Mall, developed and brought to Bangalore by the Prestige Group, offers six hundred and fifty thousand square feet of futuristically designed shopping space to over 70 leading edge brands. The mall averages over 30,000 footfalls per day and caters to a diverse set of shopping interests thereby providing ardent shoppers with all they are looking for and more. The Forum is a place one can go to for almost anything one wants to buy!

Moveo Systems, a Bangalore based start-up developing next generation mobile solutions, today announced that CavinKare, one of India’s top FMCG companies, has signed up to deploy innovative mobile solutions to further streamline communications with both their customers and distributors.

“The next generation mobile solutions from Moveo Systems will enable us to more effectively communicate across our entire ecosystem of customers and distributors, drive faster time-to-market and accelerate adoption of our new products,” said C.K.Ranganathan, Chairman and Managing Director of CavinKare.

“My team and I were very impressed with the mobile experiences delivered by Moveo and are looking forward to leveraging these to enhance not only our customer and distributor interactions but also our top line revenue growth.”

“We are very excited to have CavinKare as our first customer in India,” said Sankalp Saxena, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Moveo Systems. “The adoption of our solutions by CavinKare to enhance interactions and drive enterprise revenue is a testament to the compelling and differentiated value our mobile solutions bring to enterprises.

The innovativeness and rich experience based paradigms defined and delivered by Moveo radically alter traditional communication methods used by companies to build brand equity in the mind of their stakeholders.

E-ticketing will soon be passé. M-ticketing is going to be the rage. Mticketing (tickets on the mobile) is one of the applications that Moveo, the latest Indian start-up in mobile applications is coming up with.

The way it works is this: Say you are booking an airline ticket through your mobile – you would get the bar-code of the ticket booked as a multimedia message back to your mobile. You would show that, along with your passport/ID at the airport counter, it gets scanned and you have your boarding pass – no printout needed from your PC or laptop.

One more cool application that retailers are going to get hooked onto is this: an attempt to make malls mobile-centric. Although this works on the lines of how push technology works – sending out messages if you are in a mall about promotions in various outlets, this comes with a difference. This message is in color graphics which show the Barista coffee shop or the Benetton or Hilfiger outlet.

And if you need more information or need to call up – there is no need to memorize SMS short-codes (text messaging) – all you got to do is click on an icon on the display. And the most important point is this – you “opt in” to get these messages – it not spam shoved into your mobile.

Two-month-old Moveo, which has been started by Sankalp Saxena (former Chairman and MD of Macromedia India and i2 Technologies India) and two others from i2 Technologies been seed funded (US$1 million) by investors from companies like General Electric, IBM , FeatherLite and others.

With ambitious plans to ramp up from a mere 14 engineers to 60 by this year end which would double by next year, Moveo is ready with its prototype applications and is soon going to sign up with retailers.

Says Saxena “Today, it is data services that are high up on the list for cellular operators. Voice is going to be bundled along with data offerings and the only way you can make a difference in this world of data on mobile is by offering never-before kind of applications.”

Currently these types of colorful and easy to use mobile applications are offered by NTT DoCoMo on the i-mode platform in Japan on its CDMA technology platform. “We are going to start off with GSM but our technology is platform agnostic,” Saxena adds.

Furthermore, you don’t need high-end handsets for these applications to work. Dataenabled phones like the Nokia series 60 would do.

Today it is compelling value added data services that are going to be key differentiators to cellular operators in India where 4-5 million new subscribers are coming into mobile fold every month.

Says Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, Karnataka Circle, Bharti- Airtel, “There are three ways that value added services help us. First off, is the productivity to the customer, especially if he happens to be in the commercial or business side. Two, customers are a valued source of revenue for us and we would like to give them the best of experience. And this leads to the third point – empirical research has proved that if operators offer value added service which are compelling, there is more stickiness to the operator’s network.”

Meanwhile, Moveo’s funding is a solid endorsement of the market opportunities that exist in the mobile applications space. “First, we are looking at delivering these next generation solutions that would deliver rich, interactive multi-sensory experiences to subscribers across both the consumer and enterprise sectors in India. Once this takes off here, the global market is what we are aiming at,” Saxena adds confidently. Interestingly, in the past couple of months a number of Indian companies such as Jigrahak, Paymate, and Mauj Telecom -- all in mobile applications – have been funded by VCs.

Titans of industry provide seed funding for next generation mobile solution development start-up Moveo Systems, a Bangalore based start-up, developing innovative next generation mobile
solutions, has announced the closing of it's seed round of funding of US$1 million and the establishment of its first research and development centre in Bangalore.

The seed investors are seasoned executives across a diverse cross-section of both multinational and Indian companies, like General Electric, IBM, FeatherLite and others.

Moveo Systems is a privately held company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded in 2006,Moveo Systems is headed by accomplished software industry veterans, which provide of highly innovative next generation mobile solutions, which deliver rich interactive multi-sensory experiences for users across both the consumer and enterprise segments.

Moveo Systems, a Bangalore based start-up developing next generation mobile solutions, today announced the addition of Mr. Samir Inamdar, President and C.E.O of General Electric Consumer & Industrial for India Region and Mr. Ishwar Subramanian, Managing Director of Akzo Nobel Coatings India, to the Board of Directors of the company.

“The expansion of our board to include these two tenured executives is an honor and their insights on the implementation of quality based processes will accelerate our delivery of near perfect product and services for the mobile ecosystem in India and beyond.” said Sankalp Saxena, Founder and C.E.O. of Moveo Systems. “The Six Sigma process methodology, imbibed by GE as well as several other leading global corporations, will be incorporated into our work culture and will directly influence the development and delivery of our enterprise class mobile solutions across a diverse set of industry verticals. The leadership position Akzo Nobel has in the Process Sector will enable us to build enterprise class solutions for this vertical and leverage these into other sectors as well.”

“Moveo is significantly improving the interaction paradigm for mobile subscribers through leading edge innovation” said Samir Inamdar, President and C.E.O. of General Electric Consumer & Industrial, India Region. “Their adoption of Six Sigma methodologies from this early stage will enable them to build highly scalable processes which will ultimately result in the delivery of customer value both in India and globally. I am looking forward to interacting with this team of spirited entrepreneurs.”

“Akzo Nobel is a global leader in healthcare, coatings and chemicals. Success in our business is driven by agility, service and technology. Moveo similarly has demonstrated each of these attributes and I am confident that they will achieve their goals and make a significant difference in developing and commercializing the next generation of mobile solutions.” said Ishwar Subramanian, Managing Director of Akzo Nobel Coatings India. “I too am looking forward to being closely involved with this team of individuals.”

Both Mr. Inamdar and Mr. Subramanian will also become members of the Moveo Advisory Council (MAC). This advisory group will induct luminaries from academia and the industry sector and will meet regularly to discuss strategies focused on instantiating increased end customer value for both consumers and enterprises via the adoption of the next generation mobile solutions and services from Moveo Systems.