Looking to expand its distribution reach, PageMart Wireless Inc. formed an enterprise solutions partner program, allowing the company to work in conjunction with various allies to bring wireless two-way data solutions to enterprise networks.
“Our approach is to bring value to the network by being partners with all the pieces needed to deliver full solutions,” said Doug Glen, PageMart’s vice president of corporate development. “We are creating a virtual network of solution-provider partners, bringing the best of these groups together with a common vision.”
The program is similar to the focus of Paging Network Inc.’s VAST business group-an in-house program created to deliver customized applications to enterprise customers. However, Glen said the PageMart program does not represent a new revenue stream for the company. PageMart will continue to make money from airtime subscriptions, he said.
The program aims to partner with various system integrators, content developers and middleware providers. Partners in the program will introduce their customers to the group and together deliver a solution, with each partner getting paid for its contribution.
“PageNet is trying to turnkey the whole deal,” Glen said. “Our approach is a little less vast, pardon the pun … The contrast to VAST is that we have taken a virtual partnership approach as opposed to an all-in-one approach.”
The first companies to join the enterprise solutions partner program are 3SI Holdings Inc., eLoyalty and Abstract Data Technologies. 3SI is an application service provider hosting applications on the Internet (as opposed to having them hosted on the local area network) for companies via its KEWi.net data warehouse software. 3SI will connect KEWi.net with PageMart’s wireless network, allowing customers to reach mobile technical support personnel by way of the Internet. KEWi.net dispatches service requests or service appointment updates to field technicians and receives messages sent from mobile technicians.
ADT provides an intelligent router installed on the LAN enterprise network, which aids in message routing between the LAN and the wireless network, including support for voice-mail systems, allowing customers to work with multiple Internet, paging and voice protocols.
eLoyalty is a system integrator focused on building customer loyalty, supporting all aspects of a company’s operations, including the Internet, call centers, marketing channels, sales force, customer service and field service and logistics.
Glen said PageMart is in talks with several other application developers, middleware providers and system integrators and expects to make further announcements in coming months. “We’ll have a mixture of the rather large and small companies,” he said. “In today’s rapidly changing applications space, new players are emerging with some very cool applications that are Web-centric. We want to be very forward looking.”
Although no customers have been introduced, PageMart said it already has begun approaching certain enterprise customers, and expects to make several announcements once full interactive two-way services and devices become available, expected soon.
“This is a very two-way focused initiative,” he said.
In other news, PageMart teamed with vending machine software developer Streamware Corp. to develop a wireless system to transfer data between individual machines and central distribution stations.
