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Top mobile applications awarded

Last week the annual Ericsson Mobile Application Awards took place in Zurich, Switzerland. Over 200 companies worldwide entered the prestigious competition which honors the best market-ready mobile applications and focuses on services that add value, create convenience and make daily life and work easier and more effective.

December 14, 2004

This year's competition saw 12 finalists compete for awards in one of four categories: enterprise, information, gaming and entertainment. The winners were selected by a jury and SMS votes from the audience of 400 Ericsson Mobile Internet Forum participants, based on criteria such as professionalism, market potential, innovation, consumer friendliness and ease-of-implementation by the operators and the media industry.
Best Mobile Gaming: Hong Kong-based Artificial Life won the gaming category for the innovative 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.

 

Best Mobile Entertainment: 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.

 

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

 

Best Information Application: 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.

With 3G commercially launched in many parts of Europe and Asia, Carl-Henric Svanberg, Ericsson President and CEO, underlined importance of attractive applications not only the consumers but also for operators, vendors and the content industry.

 

"The Ericsson Mobile Application Awards proves that developers worldwide provide incredible creativity that will result in real business opportunities ready for market launch," Svanberg said.

 

The day after the awards the finalists met with operators from Europe, the Middle East and Africa to discuss possible business partnerships at an Ericsson-sponsored matchmaking session.

 

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."

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