Five mobile content developers were announced as the winner of Celcom League of Extraordinary Developers Challenge 2008 (LEDC) last month. One of the application called Get Loc! managed to get the attention of Celcom. Mobile World was able to secure an interview with the CEO of Blue Horus Solutions, Mr. Alfian Basir who was in Barcelona last month at Mobile World Congress, promoting the new location based service.

1. Tell us more about Blue Horus Solutions and its background?
Blue Horus Solutions was formed a few years ago, starting as a company involved in various ICT ventures. Around 2007, the company had decided to refocus its business into the provision of solutions relating to the Mobile environment, as well as the Internet environment. This conscious effort has led us to focus into the provisioning of Value Added Services for the Mobile Telcos.

2. What made you to participate in the League of Extraordinary Developers Challenge 2008        (LEDC)?
The main reason for participating in the LEDC was the attractive prize that Celcom had committed to award the winners. The 80:20 revenue sharing model for the winning solutions (80% for the CP, 20% for Celcom) is indeed the first to be offered by any mobile service provider in this country. It gives companies like us the perfect impetus and incentive of transforming mere concepts, ideas and prototypes into commercial reality.

3. You developed a location based service (LBS), can you tell us more about it?
The Location Based Information Mashup Service is a unique solution that combines 4 different services, namely SMS, MMS, LBS and the Web Services, into a single interactive information service, catering for both Celcom consumers and enterprise customers alike. This service is called Get Loc! (short for Get Location). It essentially provides a mobile user with a useful service of getting the location of a nearest required place of interest in relation to the user’s present location.

In explaining this service, we have, at some point in time, experienced situations where you need to find the nearest petrol station because you are running out of fuel or you need to find the nearest bank to take out cash. You may even need to look for the nearest clinic to treat your sore throat. Our Get Loc service aims to help you get this information into your hands with just a short SMS request. For example, by just typing GET BANK to a specified short code, our solution would be able to send to the user, all relevant information pertaining to the nearest bank relative to the user’s current location. This would include a Map (from Microsoft Maps) pinpointing the precise location of the bank, relevant address, contact numbers, and even a short advertisement or promotion. All this within a single MMS delivered to the user. The wide array of information is combined and delivered together in a single MMS as a result of the mashup of various web based information, utilising the Web Services technology.

4. So, when will it be commercialized and what type of charges will users pay?
We shall soon be going into further discussions with Celcom to finalise our service contract. We hope to finalise and launch this service within 3 to 4 months of signing the contract.

The charging mechanism has yet to be finalised. However, in an effort to make this service widely acceptable to the users, the charge should be reasonable.

5. How accurate will it be since it delivers information by detecting the user’s nearest cell tower? Isn’t that like within a 1 kilometer radius and how much information can you deliver to the customer in case you have more than one result (example more than 1 hotel in that area).
Eventually, the accuracy of a user’s location would further improve through cell ID triangulation algorithms. This is dependent on Celcom’s full LBS platform deployment. As for multiple information such as info of more than 1 hotel in an area this would be part of our service offering enhancements.

6. Is there anything that you need to improve on this LBS service and are you working on new features before you commercialise it?
Firstly, the more LBS coverage that Celcom deploys, the better this service will become, as it would provide more locations where information on points of interest can be compiled and delivered. There would be new features in our commercial roadmap. This includes the multiple information options (i.e. more than 1 petrol station to choose from the user’s location), as well as accompanying advertising and promotions of the related premises in the MMS messages delivered to the user.

7. How do you make profit with this LBS service and do you think that Malaysians companies are ready for SMS/MMS advertising?
To achieve profitability, we can already potentially see 2 separate sources of revenue streams. The first is coming from the consumers, via actual usage of the service. The second could come from advertising revenues of participating enterprises that would be given advertising space on each MMS delivered to the user that is requesting for the location of that particular enterprise. For example, Petronas would be able to attach an advertisement or promotion on the MMS delivered to the user that is requesting the nearest petrol station.

8. How is LEDC helping your company? Can you elaborate?
The LEDC has definitely helped the company in various ways. Of course, the potential earnings that we can derive via a lucrative 80:20 contract would go a long way towards helping the company financially. But I think it also benefits the company intangibly. Particularly, the media exposure and the full support given by Celcom and Microsoft towards our company have been invaluable.

9. How was the exposure in Barcelona? Do you have plans to expand in other countries?
I think the Barcelona event has reinforced my opinion on the level of support and commitment demonstrated by Celcom and Microsoft. I was fortunate enough to have been invited by both companies to not just experience the Mobile World Congress, but also the opportunity to meet with so many influential mobile industry players. Full credit and appreciation is given to Microsoft, which played an excellent host in organising fruitful meetings with the company’s senior global mobility executives in its efforts to promote our solution and the LEDC in general. Media interviews and presentations were even organised to showcase this. We really experienced a true sense of partnership in Barcelona.

 

 

 

 

10. Do you have any advice for other mobile content developers out there in Malaysia who are trying hard to commercialise their mobile application or content?
We are not really in a position to provide sound advice on how to commercialise their mobile application or content, especially with the early days of our own LBS solution. Nevertheless, one advice that I would give to aspiring CPs out there is to think as a user first, before coming out with a particular solution or service. Technology capability is secondary. You need to ask yourself, “Would I, as a mobile user, want to continually use this particularly solution or service that I am proposing?” Bear in mind that CONTINUALLY is the key word here because the revenue would generally come from recurring usage, not just one time. So, the technological aspect shouldn’t play the major role in coming out with a commercially viable solution. I believe that the simpler the service, the better it is in the eyes of the general consumer.

As an example, our Get Loc! Solution leverages on services that are currently offered by most mobile network providers. A simple SMS to begin the transaction, and concluded by an MMS, delivering simple yet rich and relevant information/contents to the particular user.

11. Finally, with the current economic crisis, what do you foresee in our current local mobile market this year?
The current economic crisis is undoubtedly affecting everyone in almost every industry in the world. In my opinion, the mobile phone usage would still grow year after year. But as a CP, we have to be mindful of the solutions and services that we want to develop and eventually commercialise. With limited resources, a CP would probably need to focus on developing more “recession-proof” VAS, in light of the uncertain global economic outlook. These services are those that users still tend to use in their everyday lives, regardless of the economic situation. What is this service, you may ask? Well, that’s the million dollar question for CPs like us. Put on our thinking caps and start thinking. But don’t think like a techno-geek because the next killer service could just be something that is not technologically extravagant at all. Simple, easy to use yet highly innovative services.