Consilient lands another round of funding; shifts focus to extend corporate IT systems

Consilient technologies corp. has landed a further round of financing that will enable the Newfoundland-based company to complete development of its newest product, the WEx Gateway, which promises to extend corporate IT systems into the mobile environment. The development of this new product is a significant departure from the company’s previous development efforts, which had focused on bringing to market mobile workforce management systems. Trevor Adey, president and CEO of Consilient, explains that the concept for the WEx Gateway was born out of a previous development project, dubbed the Consilient Server (RoW, Feb. 19/01). This was to have created a portable office for mobile workers. After completing the product and talking to several prospective clients, the realization set in that enterprises weren’t looking for another stand-alone network device for mobile workers. They were looking to extend current IT systems into the mobile environment, Adey explains. "When we first approached this market, we wanted to integrate and connect mobile applications with the back office," Adey tells Report on Wireless. "After being in the market a year and building a technology team, we discovered that most of the enterprises out there wanted to extend the investment they had in their corporate IT system, not buy new stand-alone systems for mobile devices and integrate them with the back office. Now we’ve totally reshaped the company because of what we’ve seen in the market. "We brought some of those products to market and we were told by Fortune 500 companies that they wanted the return (on investment) in their CRM system and they wanted whatever sat on the handheld device to look similar to what was on their desktop. So we’ve changed more from an integrator to a company that actually has its own software that responds to this requirement that we’ve identified in the market." Consilient received a total of $2.7 million for the project, of which $1.7 million came from the Atlantic Innovation Fund. Netherlands-based Tryllian Technologies, Acadia University, Dalhousie University and ColabNet of St. John’s contributed the balance of the investment. This round is enough to take the WEx Gateway to commercialization, but Adey admits that more money will be needed to aggressively attack the market after initial commercialization efforts. The amount of money required, however, will depend on the product’s traction in the marketplace, he says, adding that an initial public offering could be in the works within the next two to three years. "We probably need to raise over the next two years somewhere in the range of $2 million to $5 million to keep us scaled properly," he says. "Once we cross the chasm and get more into the pragmatist purchasing cycle, then I think we’re going to need significantly more amount of cash to grow the company properly." The WEx Gateway is a combination hardware/software system that enables companies to extend the billions of dollars invested in corporate IT systems to the millions of dollars spent on mobilizing mobile workers. These companies have invested significant sums of money in databases, CRM and ERP systems, as well as a mobile workforce. But as Adey explains, "there’s a fundamental disconnect between the two." The WEx Gateway solves this problem. Consilient’s proprietary middleware sits on the gateway and enables connectivity between handheld and wearable computers, and the enterprise IT systems. Adey discounts suggestions that a small company can’t compete in this fiercely competitive market. "(With) the companies you’re thinking about, their core business is something far, far bigger and the mobile piece is just incidental," he explains. "We’re a company totally focused in this area around the needs of early adopters."

Consilient lands another round of funding; shifts focus to extend corporate IT systems

News | 07/22/2002 4:00 am EDT

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