Three Kiwi developers have been named as finalists in Ericsson's trans-tasman Frontier competition, the search for the latest in next generation technologies.

Frontier is the only mobile/converged application competition of its kind in Australasia.

The finalists are M-Com, Saturn Media and Eyemagnet. 

M-Com's application is a mobile version of Terralink International's Terranet property information database 'Mobile Terranet'.  It enables users to search for properties and get information about its valuation, sales history, title ownership and nearby sales.

Saturn Media's application is a world first and means when listening to the radio and you hear a song you like,  you text the word 'music' to a number and are sent a link where you can automatically download the song as your ringtone on your phone.   It gives you instant access to the ringtone.

The Eyemagnet system is a multimedia management application that allows content to be published and controlled from a single source via the Internet from a webserver. The content, such as marketing messages, can be configured and targeted for different audiences at different locations and for different terminals.

All three developers will be flown to Sydney next week, where they'll be judged by industry heavy weights from the telecoms community in Australia and New Zealand.

The winner will be announced on the 17 October.  The total prize pool of more than NZ$30,000 includes travel and accommodation to 3GSM Asia or CommunicAsia in Singapore, a technology start-up pack, the latest Sony Ericsson mobile phones and business consulting from MAP Management
Consulting.

Ericsson New Zealand strategic marketing manager Jeremy Hope says this year's entries show how far we've come as an industry.

"The developers have leveraged the development in both mobile ad fixed broadband infrastructure, really pushing the boundaries with their applications."

He says Ericsson is thrilled to be able to support the growth of the industry.

"Frontier is an initiative of the Ericsson Mobility World Programme, where we help 250,000 developers with new technologies like IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), which generates new revenue for telecom operators.  Through Frontier, we give local developers the chance to help create something of real significance to operators; their customers and the industry as a whole."