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Two Irish firms, Macalla Software and Network 365, have been shortlisted as possible winners of a top award from the GSM Association.
The two Irish firms, along with Wolfpac Communications from the Philippines and Freever from France are in competition for the GSM Association's "Best Wireless Application Developer" Award.
Now in their seventh year, the awards recognise excellence and innovation across the wireless communications industry and are open to companies whose products and services support the market for the GSM family of technologies. The awards programme for 2002 includes a stronger emphasis on the consumer and corporate benefits of wireless technology, in order to reflect the more widespread use of the technology.
There are six categories for which awards will be presented including, Technology Innovation, Applications & Services, Marketing & Promotion, Wireless in the Community Awards, GSM Association Roll of Honour as well The GSM Association's Chairman's Award. Most of the six main categories have sub-categories and in all 29 separate companies were named as possible winners of awards. Macalla and Network 365 find themselves standing with an impressive mix of multinationals and blue chip candidates such as Handspring, NTT DoCoMo, Sonera Corporation, O2, Orange, AOL and Ericsson.
In 2001, winners included Geocell (Georgia), MTN Networks (Sri Lanka), Optimus Telecomunicacoes (Portugal), BT Cellnet (now mm02) and Mobitai Communications Corp (Taiwan), to name a few.
There are 11 judges, many of which are directors and executives with the GSM Association, as well as journalists, academics, consultants and researchers. The winners of the 2002 awards will be announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes on 19 February 2002.
Niall O'Cleirigh, chief executive officer of Macalla Software, who describes the awards as the "Oscars" of the wireless world, said the nomination was a validation of the company's products and services. The company was nominated for the deployment of its m-commerce platform to Postbank Nederland (ING Group) and Telfort (mmO2) in the Netherlands, one of the largest deployments of its kind in the world. In fact Macalla says that in the first six months, this undertaking clocked 500,000 users and millions of transactions.
"We are very optimistic about the future. We have grown revenues on a year by year basis and look forward to new opportunities this year," O'Cleirigh told ElectricNews.Net.
Network 365, meanwhile, recently announced new deals in Hong Kong, the UK, Sri Lanka and in Ireland in the past four months including an agreement with mmO2 for the roll out of services on its 3G network in the Isle of Man. The deal with mmO2 will see Network365 participate in a 12-month trial of 3G services for Manx Telecom customers which will include a 3G-based shopping mall hosted on Network365's mzone technology. The licensing of mzone avatar, a secure mobile wallet, will allow Manx Telecom's 3G customers to buy goods such as CDs, books, cinema and concert tickets, flowers, chocolates, wines, gifts and toys on their mobile phones.
Network365 employs around 70 worldwide but last month said it planned to increase employment levels by 20 percent. It provides a suite of mobile payment platforms all under the mzone brand.
For more information visit http://www.macalla.com or http://www.network365.com.
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