Having found success in the device management space for businesses, start-up mFormation Technologies Inc. is now looking to use its experience and resources to break into the potentially lucrative wireless carrier market. And though many have failed in such an attempt, mFormation said it already counts one official customer and is in trials with a dozen more.
“The company is focused on reducing the complexity for mobile operators,” said Upal Basu, mFormation’s co-founder and vice president of marketing.
mFormation, founded in 1999, started business by selling its device management technology to corporate customers. The company’s enterprise manager offering allows businesses to monitor employees’ data use and-more importantly-wipe clean devices that are lost or stolen. Basu said firms like Credit Suisse First Boston, Metlife and Raytheon use mFormation’s enterprise manager to secure their BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices-with the press of a button IT managers can erase all of the information stored on the lost or stolen gadget.
Enterprise “became our first market,” Basu said.
But, like several other start-up technology vendors, mFormation decided to look beyond the borders of the business world. The company, ripe with a total of $25 million in venture funding, decided the wireless industry had evolved to a point where its technology and services could find traction with network operators. Wireless carriers typically offer a far larger user base-and therefore higher margins-than businesses.
mFormation’s wireless carrier products include technology to erase information in lost or stolen phones but can also install or remove applications, track data use, change phone settings and even remotely identify and repair software glitches.
“Remote management is very difficult,” Basu said.
mFormation’s offerings are broken down into three systems. First, the company’s configuration manager allows carriers to remotely update or change the data settings on a mobile phone, be it a high-end smart phone or a low-end device. This, Basu said, ensures that new users or those switching to a new device immediately will be able to send text messages or fire up their WAP browsers. mFormation’s configuration manager works with all mobile phones and does not require any additional software inside the phone.
Second, the company’s diagnostic manager allows network operators to peek inside a users’ phone, revealing information including battery life and coverage levels, configuration settings and even installed applications. Thus, customer-care workers can check on coverage problems or troublesome software applications-and in some cases can repair the problem remotely. mFormation’s remote updating technology is based on offerings from over-the-air repair company Bitfone Corp. mFormation’s diagnostic manager also allows carriers to wipe clean lost or stolen phones. Finally, mFormation’s service quality manager allows wireless carriers to monitor network performance, reliability and availability. Thus, if a user were unable to connect to a WAP site, it would register on the service quality manager system. Both the diagnostic manager and the service quality manager only run on mobile phones with an open operating system and require the installation of mFormation software on the device.
“There’s a variety of useful information for carriers here,” said Stephanie Markham, mFormation marketing and communications manager.
Although such detailed usage information might bring up questions of user privacy, Basu explained the system tracks only network information rather than specific WAP site addresses or message contents.
“What we are monitoring is latency and throughput,” he said. “There are really no privacy issues.”
Earlier this year mFormation signed an important deal with T-Mobile USA Inc. The carrier purchased mFormation’s service quality manager to track the performance of its data network. Basu said mFormation is in trials with an additional 12 wireless carriers for various mFormation technologies, including the service quality manager. The company is also teaming with Gemplus and others to expand its sales options. mFormation faces competition from the likes of Nokia Corp., SmartTrust, IBM Corp. and others.
Basu said mFormation is scoring significant revenues from its various sales efforts, although he declined to predict when the company will break even financially. Basu said mFormation could reach break even within the next few months, but probably would continue to invest in its technology and marketing efforts instead.
“It’s such a fast-moving industry, we keep having to invest. We think this is an important time to invest,” he said. “I think this year is going to be a big year for us.”
