With all the wireless enabling solutions, wireless application service providers, devices, software and networks available today, it’s not too difficult to see how dot-coms and corporate entities mulling wireless extension of their content may feel a little overwhelmed.
Even reporters and analysts attempting to keep track of this exploding market have found themselves a little dizzy of late.
As such, perhaps the next emerging niche is a need for experts familiar with both the requirements of the business world as well as the intricacies of the fragmented wireless and Internet industries who can somehow play matchmaker.
Formed to do exactly that is newcomer Brightpod Inc., which literally just hired its first sales employee a few weeks ago while the ink dried on its introductory press release. The company is a spinoff of L.M. Ericsson, led by former executives of Ericsson’s Wireless Internet Solutions Group. Its goal is to help businesses overcome the complexities of the current wireless marketplace by compiling and integrating best-of-breed mobile Internet services into out-of-the-box solutions packages for customers.
“We really wanted to aggregate a succinct portfolio of these different solutions and offer it as a whole to businesses,” said Don Shirley, co-founder and chief executive officer of Brightpod.
Shirley formerly was director of business development at Ericsson’s Wireless Internet Solutions Group and held various technical and marketing management positions at Paging Network Inc. before that.
He said his experience with business needs gained from PageNet, combined with his mobile Internet expertise garnered during his stint at Ericsson, is indicative of the competentcies his entire company brings to the table.
“We know where BellSouth’s network is working, where Sprint’s network is working. AT&T PocketNet, Nextel Online, ReFLEX networks and so on,” he said. “Instead of (our customers) trying to put the pieces together, we’ve already done it for them.”
Brightpod has selected a group of firms offering Web to wireless and non-Web to wireless transcoding, mobile application services like instant messaging, devices and airtime to develop out-of-the-box, end-to-end solutions for clients.
It hopes to attract mid-tier firms with annual revenues of $40 million to $500 million and an IT budget of about $5 million, who haven’t the resources to spend a half-million dollars on customized solutions and consulting services, yet who need a more robust solution than the basic versions offered by individual carriers.
“We’ve determined this group has more mobile employees and are more predisposed to outsourcing,” Shirley said. “We’re offering more than what carriers are offering without going to the whole custom engagement.”
These include both dot-coms looking to wirelessly enable their sites to retailers looking to add wireless m-commerce abilities to corporate enterprises looking to mobilize work-force management systems.
After implementing the full solution, Brightpod also conducts advisory and training services for clients to teach employees how to use the services.
“It’s a handful of tools that get you to where you need to be to get information to wireless devices,” he continued. “There is no one solution. There is no one approach that works for everybody.”
The idea is for about 80 percent of the whole solution to be ready out of box, with the remaining 20 percent focused on a smaller degree of customization.
The company acts as an agent for carriers and device manufacturers, suggesting the appropriate network and device, but allowing the billing between carriers and clients to occur independently. Brightpod charges for the transcoding services as a wireless ASP, although the actual ASP services will be conducted by its technology partners.
“We sorted through all these and picked the best we feel are in the market,” Shirley said. They include Ericsson, IBM Corp., MobileQ and Oz.com.
He said this portfolio will change as time goes on, allowing Brightpod to upgrade old solutions and always offer the most up-to-date services.
“We have the flexibility to represent any service that has the latest technology from the latest sources out there,” Shirley said. “We’re not restricted or limited to technology we created or from exclusive providers.”
Brightpod will maintain a close relationship with Ericsson, which includes an equity investment, preferred technology deals and office space at Ericsson throughout this year. Other benefits include sales and distribution partnerships.
“Brightpod provides a simpler solution,” concluded Shirley. “We bring together the best mobile applications available today as a single subscription-based service that can be integrated quickly and cost-effectively into any company’s IT infrastructure.”
