Techno

Etisalat AppZone mobile platform creates vibrant market

Indunil Hewage

AppZone, Sri Lanka's very first SMS based mobile application platform launched by Etisalat in collaboration with hSenid Group of Companies has created a vibrant market for android developers in the country. AppZone was the first independent, third party application development platform to be introduced in Sri Lanka by a Telco.

"We see a great potential in applications for mobile phones; supported by higher growth rate in smart mobile phone usage in the country. AppZone platform which is run on SMS is still hot; growing with a large number of new applications coming in," Etisalat Sri Lanka Director/CEO Dumindra Ratnayaka said.

The AppZone platform continues to grow, hosting a total number of 488 active applications.

The AppZone gives the ability to budding App developers ranging from Schoolchildren, university students, professionals and software development companies to create and sell their own unique applications, as this would allow 3 million etisalat subscribers to browse and download a wide range of applications from business to pleasure through the Etisalat AppZone.

Etisalat Sri Lanka Director /CEO Dumindra Ratanayaka said, "The Appzone has truly become a stepping stone in taking Sri Lanka to the global mobile application development stage and Etisalat in partnership with hSenid has created the stage for emerging Sri Lankan mobile software developers to experience rapid development and commercialization of their mobile applications. The App developers could become recognized locally and globally based on the success of their application in future.

This would open up new avenues for upcoming entrepreneurs to enhance their presence in the region and they would get the chance of sharing those applications both home and abroad. Our target is to promote and empower upcoming entrepreneurs interested in mobile App development sphere.

The AppZone itself works on a revenue sharing model and developers earn 70% of the total revenue generated through their applications, allowing them to become entrepreneurs. The other important factor is that the ownership of the product remains with developers after the competition and with that recognition they could start-up businesses which create more opportunities for their community.

"Our involvement with the project is very less. The developers would have to generate their own methods of marketing through various means as we would not be spending money to market those applications. This was the main reason why we could share a higher percentage of revenue with the developers. We wanted to encourage these entrepreneurs thereby getting them into the development of applications, so that developers would be able to enhance their involvement with the general public with applications," Ratnayaka noted.

Commenting on the emerging Android eco-system in Sri Lanka, which was also highlighted in the recent UNCTAD report, Ratnayake noted that, "We are very much delighted to be listed as a company in UNCTAD Information report.

Sri Lanka was featured for the first time in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Information Economy report 2012 and Etisalat Lanka listed for its contribution for the ICT industry in Sri Lanka. Special mention were also given to AppZone and Book Hub initiatives spearheaded by Etisalat."

Dinesh Saparamadu, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of hSenid Group said, "The main objective of the project is to make it accessible to majority of developers and reduce the operator involvement in doing the logistic part of the platform.

We have created a one platform which would interface Etisalat network for the purpose of interconnecting to SMS and MMS, as well as for the billing ability ; so that people could charge for their services and we could give that as a front end to the developers. Based on those guidelines, developers are able to develop applications, test and post in this front end. It was very easy for us to opening it for a large amount of developers, so this is how AppZone came in to life.

Prior to this, the developers had to get a separate connection for each application and all that was completely taken out by the AppZone platform. The developers will now have to the opportunity of trying out their ideas without any fear of thinking of what if this may fail. Accordingly, the entry barriers have actually been brought down on AppZone platform.

"The AppZone has become the stepping stone for many of our developers to get into IOS, Android, Windows. The developers completely understood the target market and used a lot of creative marketing through their circles, specially social media to popularize, distribute, sell their applications.

We really saw the entrepreneurs coming up with creative ideas and turning those ideas into creative applications. It may not be the ability to create those applications by writing the source code, it is all about taking the interest to market your creative ideas, rather than sitting back and watching," Saparamadu said.

Some of the High revenue earning applications of AppZone are Sinhalen Joke, Yalu, Lovebird, Beautiful-Love quotes and Love Tips.

AppZone Champions Competition

The 'AppZone Champions' recognizes budding developers who have been successful in the development of applications on the AppZone.

The AppZone Champions Competition is open to all ambitious Sri Lankan technocrats who have the ability to market their creative applications on Etisalat AppZone platform.

The main criteria of the competition would be the absolute revenue growth over the evaluation period. In addition, App must be published in the Google Play store and App must have local relevance and local language support.

Etisalat is also running a special category, named 'Android Challenge' in this competition; In addition, developers would get a chance to enter into Etisalat AppZone Awards.

The winners would stand a chance of wining valuable prizes from Etisalat.

Samsung transforms viewing with Smart TV range

Samsung Electronics has reinforced its technology leadership through the introduction of its new Smart TV lineup that responds to consumer demand for premium design, smarter features, superior picture quality, and larger screen sizes. Samsung's new flagship Smart LED television series allows users to enjoy seamless navigation, intuitive control and personalized user experiences.

"In the Year 2013 , we will strengthen our legacy of introducing televisions that have the best in class design , superior performance as well as feature innovations that our customers have grown to love us for . Consumers require Innovation and Samsung has responded to this need by launching televisions that are clearly category defining products.

These products have given our consumers a reason to upgrade and what we are witnessing in India is a dramatic transition from CRT to Flat Panel TVs and now to Smart TVs." States S. K. Kim, Sr VP, Consumer Electronics, Samsung.

Samsung announced the introduction of 20 new Smart television models across its Flagship Series 8 /7 and 6 as well as Series 5500 of LED televisions. Designed to deliver the ultimate lean back experience to consumers, the Samsung LED TVs - F8000 and F7500, are the first Samsung televisions to feature a quad-core processor.

Available in 46", 55" and 65" class screen sizes, the F8000 and F7500 series features an ultra-thin profile, a quarter-inch thick bezel and stands that are truly spell binding.

Both the F8000 and F7500 series offer brighter, more vibrant pictures with richer colors, deeper black levels and higher contrasts.

Their ultra-thin design profile and TV stands - Arc style in F8000 make the TVs appear to be floating in the air. The F8000 is also among Samsung's first line of Smart TVs equipped with Intelligent Viewing, which creates an optimized picture quality dependent on the source of content, and a quad-core processor, making it even easier and faster for consumers to toggle between apps, online services and on-air TV.

This advanced TV user experience has been expanded to smartphones and tablets, thanks to Samsung's leadership in connectivity.

Viewers can use their devices as a remote control or simultaneously enjoy two different pieces of content from a TV or Blu-ray player on a second screen. They can also mirror their Smart TV content on a tablet to take it with them around the home. "Our 2013 Smart TVs, offer effortless, intuitive ways for consumers to discover and share more of the content they love while creating the ultimate home entertainment experience." states Kim.

More information could be obtained from www.samsung.com.

Samsung Products are sold and serviced by Singer, Softlogic & Singhagiri outlets in Sri Lanka.

Axienta moves to new premises

Axienta (Pvt) Ltd. an innovative software company specializing in the rapid development and deployment of mobile enterprise solutions in Sri Lanka, recently moved to a new, larger corporate office to accommodate the Company's rapid expansion due to its continuous growth in the domestic and foreign market .

This move represents an exciting development particularly for the expansion of their mobile development team and to increase overall efficiency, improve training services, improve management processes and provides an environment for Axienta's experienced and skilled team to continue to develop and facilitate the collaboration with client organizations including those in the FMCG Sector, Pharmaceuticals, Real Estate, Healthcare and the Telecom industry.

The new office based at Walukarama Road, Colombo 3 , would continue to provide integrated mobile platform for sales force automation solutions as well as other enterprise mobility solutions such as MediCRM, dealer management solution, Hybrid SFA-CRM system and productivity enhancement solutions.

In addition, it would support the project management and business analysis functions in projects and will work closely with the development and QA groups, allowing overall 'client management' aspects to be handled by a specialist group. The department also consists of a sub group specialized on mobile application testing.

The QA and support group work as the gate keepers for quality assurance of products and services. This department consists of around 35% of the total staff and work together to form a strong QA team that would leverage latest methodologies.

Speaking of this venture, Manju Fernando, the CEO and Founder of the group stated "the move into new and larger building space has offered excellent space for support of further growth to continue hiring talent to fill positions within Axienta as well as support and training facilities and more modern up-to-date office space for staff. It has allowed us to use the extra space to allocate staff working spaces for ease of integration within each department and relevant personal for a more efficiency in the work-flow.

We're continually evaluating our operations, and this move has offered the best possible infrastructure to maximize our competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Therefore this growth is underpinned by a strategic approach that combines the provision of innovative products for the digital age as well as our commitment to ensuring that we are a responsible corporate citizen, backed by strong strategies related to empowerment and sustainability initiatives". Sriyantha Wass, COO of the company also endorsed these views of their further expansion plan for the brand by stating "Our strategy was to build a platform that allows us to build client specific version in a very rapid way as opposed to treating as bespoke projects.

Platform is all about reusability of components across similar but diverse verticals and it has worked well. The best example of this is that we managed to build our real-estate product, start to end in a few months. The same is true of our Telco solution"