PCS Innovations launches developer program and increases market presence

PCS Innovations Inc, Longueuil QC, has announced two major partnerships that will move its wireless application development platform into the emerging mobile commerce market. The announcements were made at a preview of the most recent version of its mobileMAGIC platform, planned for commercial launch later this month at the Global Exchange Show in Chicago. Growth in the mobile commerce market is expected to soar in coming years, as more wireless connectivity is integrated into traditional ecommerce strategies. In July, the company joined Mobilocity Inc’s Mobility Lab to help the New York-based company develop new applications for the mobile commerce market (RoW, Aug 21/00). New York-based Plural Inc will now be able to provide its customers with a tool to develop wireless applications that can be offered in a complete e-business solution. OpenPages Inc, Westford MA, will use the wireless application development capabilities of mobileMAGIC to develop unique m-business solutions that provide content management regardless of where the content will be deployed. MobileMAGIC is a generic platform with which developers, content providers and ASPs can build applications that can be delivered to one-way and two-way pagers, independent of protocol, says Michael O’Farrell, executive VP of business development at PCS Innovations. It also supports short messaging service and PCS technologies, and the company has added in MobileMAGIC version 2.0 uplink push technologies or wireless application protocol (WAP) capabilities. The recent market activity from PCS Innovations signals a marked change in its previous corporate strategy. The company’s profile is on the rise and it’s now ready to aggressively increase market presence and marketshare. "We’ve been hanging under the radar for the last four and a half years to build our company and to focus our company on software and software engineering," O’Farrell told Report on Wireless. "Our approach has been to basically get flagship accounts, stabilize our technology, build our strategy and make sure our resources were trained." Now that the company has come out of its shell, it plans to aggressively go after marketshare in the highly competitive mobile application development market. Word on an initial public offering could be coming by next year. "Within the next 12 to 18 months, we’ll position when (an IPO) will happen," O’Farrell says. "Right now we’re working on distribution channels and revenue streams that can back and support a traditional IPO." Wireless messaging to mobile application development While he wouldn’t release revenue and sales details, he says that the company has grown quite dramatically. "Next year will be the bellwether to maybe make those kinds of statements," he says. PCS Innovations has come a long way from its core focus on wireless messaging. With the advent of higher data rates and newer wireless protocols, the company expanded into the more lucrative wireless application development market where the risks may be higher, but so are the returns. With the people, technology and contracts in place, the company is now ready to forge ahead with an aggressive marketing and advertising campaign. To help raise its profile, PCS Innovations plans to advertise in a wide range of industry publications. "So within the different market sectors, we’re trying to get brand recognition that helps us support our alliances," he says. Rather than selling to the end-user, the company is courting systems integrators in North America and in Europe. While its primary focus for now will be this side of the Atlantic, PCS Innovations is seeing some interest from integrators in Italy, France and the UK. To date, it has enrolled about six of them, and plans are in the works to get a total of 20 by the end of September. Working together as partners, PCS Innovations will provide the system integrators with the know-how to develop applications for their vertical and horizontal markets, so they can deliver wireless strategies to their customers.

PCS Innovations launches developer program and increases market presence

News | 09/05/2000 4:00 am EDT

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