Craig Harper went from trying to keep track of his daughter to launching his own company that aims to help businesses keep track of their mobile workforce and be more productive.
In 2006, Harper bought his 9-year-old daughter a Disney Mobile family cellphone, which gives parents the ability to control who their child talks to, how many minutes are used and GPS for pinpointing location.
“I was really disappointed with the tracking capabilities of the phone,” Harper said.
From that experience, Harper launched Apisphere Inc. in June 2006. Harper said it was no problem to write the tracking code for the company but the challenge is offering solutions that can track “millions of people simultaneously.”
At the start of the venture, Harper had to decide whether the company would focus on selling products that sent commercial advertising to cellphone users based on their location or developing solutions for the enterprise.
“I think enterprises tend to buy technology that can make their workers more productive,” he said. “In this day and age, companies are trying to find more ways to make money in less time.”
Harper said the market for sending advertising to consumers via the device based on location is a few years off. However, the market for location-based services in the enterprise is ripe.
For the past couple of years, turn-by-turn navigation devices have taken off and the technology has also been widely used by companies to track their vehicle fleets and inventory.
“I’m hopeful the sector will make some significant inroads in using the technology beyond fleet and inventory management,” he said.
Salesforce app
The company is launching two new solutions this week that are geared to help mobile workers to be more productive in the field. The company has created a location intelligence solution for Salesforce’s CRM application and a location aware plug-in for Microsoft Outlook.
With the new solution, customers that use salesforce.com now have access to a geo-triggered interface that provides real-time location intelligence that pushes client-specific information to the handsets of sales workers.
With the solution, sales workers “can get the right information, at the right time, wherever they are,” Harper said.
The solution integrates 150,000 points of interest with the Salesforce application, but is scalable beyond 150 million. So when a worker is set to meet with a client at their office, the location aspect of the solution is triggered, sending the client information stored on salesforce.com to the worker’s mobile handset. After the meeting, a worker can then make changes to their client’s profile with a voice option, which is later dictated into the system. Harper said this saves a worker time from having to type in the changes.
“This solution turns sales reps into the absolutely best sales reps they can be,” he said.
Travel updates
The solution can also be used to get traffic information in real time.
“Traffic conditions change,” he said. “The solution sends traffic information at the exact moment a person needs it.”
It can also be helpful for business travel.
“When a person walks into the airport, information, including their flight status and gate, is automatically sent to their wireless device,” he said.
Apisphere is unveiling the technology during Salesforce’s Dreamforce convention, which started Sunday and ends Wednesday. The gathering is being held in San Francisco, which is a short trip from Apisphere’s headquarters in Berkeley.
The location plug-in for Microsoft Outlook is a personal assistant without having to employ one, Harper said. With the technology, users can send and receive messages on their mobile devices based on their Outlook calendar and their location.
The technology can be used to alert users of scheduled meetings. Users can also notify friends and colleagues when they are nearing their scheduled destination. The plug-in will be available for free at application stores for the Apple iPhone and Google’s Android handset.
Harper said the company has created solutions that work on virtually every handset, which include the iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile smartphones.
“We are not a single silo,” he said.
Since creating the company, Harper has added employees, which now total 15 full-time and three contract workers. The company has earned $3 million and it has set a goal to reach $10 million. Harper said it took time for the company to forge relationships with the carriers and more products are now being released in the market.
“We have jumped over all the roadblocks,” he said. “We should start to see reoccurring revenue.”
