this year's competition was hard, with more than 200 applications vying for honors in just four categories: enterprise, information, gaming and entertainment. And all 12 of the applications chosen as finalists had already been launched commercially.

The winners - Mobile Application Awards 2004

The enterprise category was won by German developer Gavitec with an application called Lavasphere, which can read optical codes such as bar codes.

Christian Steinborn, of Gavitec, says although there are similar systems on the market, Lavasphere is a step further ahead. "We are offering a complete end-to-end solution, the only one that also includes hardware that reads these optical tags from the phone's display," he says.

In an example of a local bus application, a user could scan a code printed at a bus stop, get the departure time for next bus on the phone and buy a ticket online. The ticket is sent in the form of another optical tag. The bus in turn has a reader that detects the tag from the phone's display. Also, the code could be used as internet links or for downloads.

Wayfinder, of Sweden, won the prize for best information application with its EuroNavigator. The application is a GPS-based mapping and navigation solution where phone users can download maps and detailed site information. In this way, maps and local information are always up to date. The system also uses local traffic information to offer the best route and a voice service guides the user to the end of the journey. The system covers Europe today and is about to be launched in the US.

Martin Wenhov, of Wayfinder, sees the prize as an acknowledgement of the company's achievements. "Ericsson is such an important player on the market. That makes this prize important across the whole industry," he says. "There are other navigation systems, but by using mobile data, we can offer it at a better price ? and with detailed and up-to-date information." A GSM-positioning-based version of the application will be launched soon.

The gaming category was won by Hong Kong-based Artificial Life Inc. for V-Girl ? Your Virtual Girlfriend. The girl, called Vivian, lives in a virtual and graphically-advanced 3D world inside the phone, and the object is to help her continue through life. She wakes up in the morning, goes to work and home again, and needs food, rest, care ? and sometimes a present ? to be happy.

Eberhard Shoneburg, from Artificial Life, says the prize can be considered a global award. "With competitors coming from all over the word this is more than a local thing. For us as a company, the prize is of course a marketing thing."

The entertainment prize went to Swedish outfit Softhouse and their application Twin Factor. It is an MMS-based application where users send in a picture and in return receive a sequence where the person in the picture morphs into the celebrity which most resembles them.

Stina ūesson, of Softhouse, also believes their award will benefit the company's marketing. "I think we won because there are so many ways to use Twin Factor; for example for look-alike competitions or in connection to different types of events and TV productions."

The Ericsson Mobile Application Award winners were selected by a jury and SMS votes from the audience of 400 Ericsson Mobile Internet Forum participants.

Peter Wolf, Swiss IT journalist and a member of the jury, said he was impressed by the standard of the finalists. "There were a lot of really cool applications. Some of them I use myself already and, overall, I think the level of this year's awards was even better than last year."

David Sinnot, vice president of one of last year's winners, NewBay Software, says the award was great for reaching global customers with their application, FoneBlog. "The awards were an excellent platform for us to promote our application. Today, FoneBlog is a success worldwide."

Virtual Girlfriend to increase premium services
Lavasphere by Gavitec
EuroNavigator by Wayfinder
V-Girl by Artificial Life Inc.
Twin Factor by Softhouse

By Lars-Magnus Kihlström