MobUser

On Jan 1, 2008 mFoundry has now officially turned four years old. As I sit down and reflect on what we’ve seen and accomplished in 2007 I am amazed at how much farther we have come along in the Mobile Industry.

mFoundry Establishes itself as a Mobile Banking Market Leader

Without a doubt the single biggest business achievement in 2007 was the incredible success we achieved in the Mobile Banking sector. When we committed to mBanking as a vertical we were all hopeful that the gamble would pay off and it certainly has indeed. As we move into 2008 we have tremendous support from leading Banks, Operators, and Strategic Partners.

mFoundry Closes its Series C Financing

One of the most significant business events in 2007 was the closing of our Series C. Compared to previous rounds, this was the easiest. Our story was tight and we had a very clear business strategy that resonated with our investors. Aside from the addition of cash, this Series C brings with it a collection of very powerful strategic partners that will no doubt help to shape our future.

Firethorn is Aquired by Qualcomm

In a surprising move by Qualcomm, Firethorn was purchased in the later part of 2007. Firethorn has been considered by many to be our closest competitor in the Mobile Banking space. The acquisition by Qualcomm galvanized the Mobile Banking vertical and has sparked a wildfire of interest in us from Qualcomm’s competitors. This was perhaps the best thing that could happen to mFoundry (short of being purchased ourselves) as it instantly gave credibility to the Mobile Banking and Payments space.

Mojax Reaches 1.0 on J2ME and BREW

This took longer than I expected but I am very please to say that, after a year of development, we have a candidate release for Mojax 1.0 on both J2ME and BREW. This is due entirely to the excellent team of engineers and QA testers that all helped to bring Mojax to life.

Mojax continues to be what I consider the single most effective way to develop mobile applications. Though we have leveraged the power of Mojax in the pursuit of Mobile Banking, it is my continued vision to also see Mojax powering a myriad of other verticals. Our private Beta in 2007 has grown to almost 500 developers from all around the world. I am looking forward to continuing to grow our developer community and provide a simple and effective way for them to create mobile applications.

Apple iPhone and Google Android Introduced to the Market

One of the greatest strengths of Mojax is the fact that it will work on BREW and J2ME, two platforms that are so completely different from each other that developing or porting any application to them requires at least two development teams. Conversely, a Mojax Moblet created once (in a fraction of the time), will immediately run on both BREW and MIDP without ANY additional work. The introduction of the iPhone and soon Android devices into the market only further adds to the overall entropy in the mobile application space. Android, being Java-based, is the “easier” of the two new platforms to support; but iPhone is likely to be Objective-C based which will again require a separate development team to support. I have put the iPhone and Android on the Mojax roadmap for 2008 along with Windows Mobile.

What Does the Future Hold for mFoundry?

From a company perspective, 2008 will see mFoundry transition from 100% product development into a mix of development and product support. Our company size will grow as we add product solutions and support capabilities as well as ramp up our direct sales efforts. We will also continue to add to our list of mBanking channel partners.

Mojax will be ported to Windows Mobile, Android, and iPhone by the middle to end of 2008. Additionally, support for 3rd party Mojax Plug-in development will also be a priority for the early part of 2008.

By the end of 2008 I expect mFoundry’s product stack to be the most pervasive Mobile Banking platform in the US and for Mojax to be used by 3rd parties to create new exciting mobile verticals. 2007 was an exciting year but I expect 2008 to exceed our expectations.

Best wishes to everyone and to all a prosperous New Year!

- Rodney Aiglstorfer

We’ve been using Google Analytics to track the usage of all of our web sites for a while now and I must say that it is one of the best web analytics tools I have used. Lately I’ve been digging into the Javascript code that I have to include into a page so that it can be tracked to see if it is possible to leverage Google Analytics to track Moblet usage.

mojax applications are effectively Javascript applications that run on a mobile device and as such share many of the characteristics of a browser with a few notable exceptions. As a result it should be possible to make all the same asynchronous calls that a web browser makes to the google tracking service within a mobile application. The implications should be obvious but a solution like this would provide the best insight into how a moblet is used as well as ways to improve upon it. I’ll post again on this issue once I have something up and running!

With the release of GMail Mobile, Google is changing the way the mobile industry distributes mobile applications and is validating the demand for non-entertainment based mobile application services. Along with Google Maps Mobile, Google is distributing mobile applications for free and directly to the consumer. As companies start to see the success of Google’s mobile applications more will start to look to mobile as the natural extension to their existing web applications. The reality, however, of building a mobile application for mass-market devices is not something a typical company can deliver due to the expense of developing a mobile application that will actually run across so many different devices.

mojax was designed from the start to enable companies and individuals without the resources of Google to create equally compelling mobile applications that run across most mass-market devices. In effect, anyone with AJAX development experience will be able to create applications of the quality of Google in a fraction of the time and with the resources they already have. The future is looking very bright!