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Mobile World Congress 2010

ZTE and Intivation strengthen mobile solar technology partnership

Intivation and ZTE today announced at Mobile World Congress 2010 the next generation low-cost solar handset and a universal solar charger based on groundbreaking Intivation technology.

Based on the success of the ZTE S312 Solar Phone which took Africa by storm last year, the new S316 Solar Phone will provide solar powered communications to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. ZTE is also launching a low cost stand alone solar charger, the S101, based on SunBoost technology, as a direct response to major operator requests.

Thanks to Intivation's unique SunBoost solar conversion technology and ZTE’s innovative products, people in power-challenged areas can now use mobile phones without the need to charge directly from the electricity grid, increasing people’s independence and driving down their telecommunication costs. With SunBoost, these phones charge much better in all weather conditions, providing a far better charging experience than anything else on the market today.

The new features on the S316 phone and the solar charger have been developed following operators’ requirements for a solar solution for their existing customer base, and for new customers. The S316 now also incorporates a torch, vital in areas without access to constant grid electricity. The stand alone universal solar charger (S101) works particularly well in sub-optimal weather conditions, charging remarkably faster than other solar chargers available today. The device also has a set of LEDs to be used as a torch or reading light.

“Green and environmental affairs are increasingly high on the global agenda, and products that address these issues are popular” said Mr. Wang Yongzhong, general manager of GSM and UMTS handsets, ZTE. “Solar- powered handsets are mainly used in places with limited or no access to electricity. Soon, we’ll see a demand to save power in other, more developed areas that will boost the popularity of solar products. To provide customers with ever “greener” products is a responsibility that we at ZTE take seriously. Our donation of solar powered handsets to Haiti was done with ZTE’s commitment to human interests at heart.”

Paul Naastepad, CEO, Intivation added; “Our relationship with ZTE has gone from strength to strength over the past year and we’re delighted to be able to build on what we’ve learnt working together in Africa and other developing countries. These two new devices will serve a much larger global group of consumers benefitting from the comfort and often necessity for a solar powered device”. The S316 and S101 will be available across the world from April, 20. • 16-2-10

ZTE is a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions. It has the widest and most complete product range in the world – covering virtually every sector of the fixed, wireless, service and terminals markets. The company delivers innovative, custom-made products and services to over 500 operators in more than 140 countries, helping them to achieve continued revenue growth and to shape the future of the world’s communications. ZTE commits around 10% of its annual turnover to research and development and takes a leading role in a wide range of international bodies developing emerging telecoms standards.

Marketing mobapps

Social Network Analysis from Pursway

Influencer Marketing company Pursway (formerly Datanetis) is helping a growing number of consumer companies realize an order of magnitude improvement in the effectiveness of their customer relationship strategies, boosting customer acquisition, retention, and cross-selling outcomes.

On the heels of major customer wins, Pursway is expanding its operations in Europe and North America with a $6 million Series A investment from Battery Ventures.
Based on a combination of patent-pending algorithms and influencer marketing expertise and success metrics developed in over one hundred customer implementations, Pursway offers the first and only solution that enables companies to leverage social influence in a scalable and measurable fashion.

“It is well-documented that most buying decisions are made as a result of recommendations from friends, family, and colleagues,” notes Elery Pfeffer, Pursway’s Co-founder and CEO. “Our solution enables companies to close the gap between how they market their products and services and the way consumers really make their buying decision. Working with some of the leading global retail, financial, and telecommunication companies worldwide, the results show 5-10 times improvement in marketing ROI in as short as 3 months.”

The Pursway solution enables companies to identify the influencers and followers for each product or offer within their customer database. They can then create campaigns that utilize this information in a measurable fashion that can be tied to success metrics.

Companies working with the Pursway solution include Vodafone Group, Orange, and other leading mobile network operators, as well as companies in the retail, financial, and travel and hospitality sectors.

Bob Rapp, Head of User Communities at Vodafone Group says, “The work we have done with Pursway on a recent product launch across Europe demonstrates the capabilities and value presented by the Pursway solution and its team above and beyond any other methods we have previously experimented with.”

“Helping the launch of social network analysis initiatives in several European mobile network operators, Pursway has been able to expand the operators’ knowledge of the subscriber base and identify a large number of influencers not considered in previous analyses,” according to Saverio Romeo, Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “The effect of the influencers on the campaigns has also been significant. On average, each influencer has caused three to seven followers to respond to the campaign that, in turn, has strongly increased product uptake.”

Unlike solutions that search for opinion leaders in social media conversations (e.g. Twitter, Facebook), Pursway employs a distinctly different method that enables companies to identify the millions of “everyday influencers” using only data that already exist in their customer database, and without infringing on the privacy of online conversations.
“Our findings from over one hundred customer projects show that people who talk the most, post the most, or have the most connections are not necessarily the real influencers when it comes to actual buying behavior,” adds Pfeffer.

“We have developed our own social network analysis solution and were able to use it for specific purposes in our marketing efforts,” notes Alain Glickman, Customer Insights Director, Orange Group. “We have also looked at other solutions, but Pursway has taken the technology and the entire Influencer Marketing approach to a new level that has the potential for far-reaching impact on our entire customer relationship strategy and beyond what we are able to do today.”

Pursway works closely with chief marketing officers and heads of customer relationship management (CRM) to establish best practices that amplify the viral effect through campaigns and customer experiences that motivate influencers to spread the word and become evangelists for a company’s products and services.

“For each product or service tThere is typically 7-15% of the population who are the real influencers, but they can impact as much as 70% of purchase decisions. By now we have analyzed a cumulative consumer base of well over a hundred million people, and have delivered the same order of magnitude increase in marketing effectiveness working with retailers, financial service providers, travel and entertainment destinations, and mobile telephone operators all over the world,” explains Ran Shaul, Pursway’s Co-Founder and EVP Customer Solutions.

“We view Influencer Marketing as an important vehicle to help us reach customers in ways that go beyond the traditional marketing channels. We selected the Pursway solution to help us leverage the power of social influence in order to strengthen customer advocacy, enhance loyalty, and increase the value and frequency of customer interactions at our properties,” says George Rogers, Executive Director of Strategic Marketing at Connecticut’s Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Pursway’s novel approach and proprietary technology has shown to produce a multifold increase in ROI as compared to traditional data mining and customer relationship management (CRM) strategies and techniques. “We have been using extensive segmentation of our customer database for quite some time and have a very successful loyalty program that we have been cultivating for years,” says Ofra Lewin, VP marketing for Crazy Line, a 70-store leading fashion retailer in Israel.

“Working with Pursway, we have been able to target and engage our most influential customers above and beyond what we achieved prior to that, generating results that have contributed to a measurable increase in our bottom-line profit.” • 9-2-10

Mobile World Congress 2010

Inventec and Intivation launch solar powered feature phone

Intivation and Inventec Appliances (Jiangning) Corporation (AIC) announced the launch of the GS109, a solar powered dual-sim feature phone.The new partnership between Intivation, a solar mobile technology company and IAC, a successful ODM company and owner of the OKWAP brand, has culminated in the launch of the GS109 solar feature phone, designed with the global market in mind.

The GS109 is a mid-level phone with a raft of previously unheard features of in the solar mobile space including: dual sim, SD memory card slot, bluetooth 2.1, video and photo camera, radio and MP3 player.

Paul Naastepad, CEO, Intivation, commented, “This is a great opportunity for Intivation to continue developing ground breaking technology with a partner that is a great fit for our business. IAC has strong heritage in design and manufacturing and together, we can support the needs of many more markets in the solar mobile space.” 

Verne Zhang, President & CEO, AIC continues, “We have been excited by the potential of solar for some years now and Intivation are an ideal partner to work with. Together we can make full feature phones at entry level prices a reality for people for whom reliable electricity is a problem. This is an area of the market which shows great promise and we look forward to a strong relationship with Intivation.” The GS109 will come to market in March 2010. • 16-2-10

Since its establishment in 2000, Inventec Appliances Corporation (IAC) has been devoting itself to becoming the best in the ODM business with a focus in the industry associated with multi-media players, smart hand-held and other communication devices. It has been concentrating its efforts on the development and integration of various core software and hardware technologies. • Intivation, an Amsterdam based engineering firm, partners with some of the world’s leading mobile devices manufacturers and has broad experience in integrating solar power solutions in portable consumer electronics. Intivation is the leader in the development of solar powered mobile phones, chargers and battery packs.

Handsets

Smartphones for carrier distribution

AnyDATA Corporation announced two leading edge Windows smartphones for carrier distribution, the ASP-318 and the ASP-518.   Both devices are loaded with multimedia features that provide consumers with a rich entertainment experience on AnyDATA smartphones.

The ASP-318 is a low cost and affordable Windows Mobile smartphone for cellular subscribers, such as students and enterprise workers who previously may have only considered a mid-tier feature phone. 

The AnyDATA smartphone utilizes the media-rich Mediatek MT6516 application processor that is designed for entry level smartphones.  It provides a rich multimedia experience for cellular subscribers on existing 2G GSM networks. 

The ASP-318 smartphone features Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, a 3.2 inch color touch screen, GPS to support navigation and LBS applications, an accelerometer, dual SIM, EDGE/GPRS modem, a micro SD slot for memory expansion, and an FM radio.  The ASP-318 also has a 3.2 megapixel camera with built-in flash, autofocus, and macro-mode to focus on close-up images.

Based on its recent partnership with SRS Labs, AnyDATA plans to further enhance the ASP-318 with SRS TruMedia TM which improves the audio performance with remarkable depth and clarity.   The ASP-318 operates globally on quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz bands.  The AnyDATA ASP-318 will be commercially available in 2nd quarter, 2010 and will be marketed as the iMedia smartphone.

The ASP-518 is a 3G dual mode smartphone currently marketed by China Telecom utilizing the well known Phillips brand. The phone has a striking design with tapered edges that look sharp and assist in gripping the phone.  The ASP-518 smartphone features Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, GPS navigation, a brilliant 3.2 inch WVGA screen, WiFi, 4 gigabytes of memory, as well as a micro SD memory slot.

The ASP-518 is optimal for travelers or subscribers with two phone numbers since it supports dual SIMs and dual standby.   The phone operates simultaneously on 3G CDMA EVDO Rev A networks as well as GSM 900/1800 networks.  The smartphone also has dual cameras, namely a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera for taking high quality photos and a front facing camera to enable mobile video-conferencing. The ASP-518 features the MSM7627 3G processor from Qualcomm.

The ASP-518 will also be equipped with superb audio that utilizes SRS technology.  Audio performance has become a significant purchasing factor as consumers shop for more sophisticated phones. In a recent MarketTools study conducted in November 2009, 92 percent of survey respondents indicated the quality of sound is important or very important when purchasing a mobile phone. 

"We have listened to our carrier customers and provide smartphones that can boost subscription revenues and reduce churn," said Dr. Soon B. Shin, CEO of AnyDATA.   "Our carrier customers desire high end and entry level smartphones that they can brand and provide a compelling multimedia experience for smartphone applications." 

AnyDATA will be demonstrating these world class smartphones along with other products such as 3G USB modems, 3G modules, an Interactive Display Appliance (IDA), and a 3G connected camera security system in its booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.   The AnyDATA booth number is Hall 2, booth C102. • 9-2-10