UIEvolution

Toronto, Ontario– April 27, 2011 –MMV Financial (MMV), a pre-eminent specialty finance firm serving venture-backed companies in North America, announced today that it has provided a $2 million follow-on financing to UIEvolution. The leading producer of mobile convergence technology, UIEvolution consistently delivers rich application experiences for mobile and embedded digital devices. The additional capital provided by MMV will assist UIEvolution in innovating industry-leading software products and services that allow operators, device makers and media companies the ability to engage today’s consumers across the ever-expanding mobile devices and platforms.

“We are extremely happy with our partnership with MMV Financial,” said Chris Ruff, CEO of UIEvolution. “We appreciate MMV’s flexibility in structuring a deal that suited our growth requirements and business needs.  Also their ability to close quickly allowed me to focus on our business instead of a lengthy financing process.”

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UIEMagnify supercharges interaction of apps on mobile, tablets, TVs and autos by allowing apps to easily connect to cloud services

Kirkland, WA – March 21, 2011 – UIEvolution today introduces UIEMagnify™ a cloud-based software product to enhance its already robust User Experience Management Platform for connected apps.

UIEMagnify drives engagement and supercharges interaction of apps on smartphones, tablets, TVs and autos by allowing apps to easily connect to cloud services, including social media, music & video providers, advertising networks, content management systems and payment services.

“Our customers are focused on creating app experiences that define a new connected lifestyle for their consumers,” said Chris Ruff, CEO of UIEvolution.   “With UIEMagnify, we help our customers capture this growing connected apps opportunity.”

UIEMagnify lets brands, media companies, service providers and device manufactures integrate and manage their own custom API’s and cloud services. In short, UIEMagnify  allows creation of apps that are highly branded, easy to use, and continuously upgradable. See the Full Post »

Building on the successful launch of its Top25 Brand, UIEvolution has expanded to international destinations with the launch of Top25 Cairo, Top 25 Rio De Janeiro, Top 25 Madrid and Top 25 Barcelona.

“US mobile users are traveling abroad and global mobile app usage is growing rapidly all over the world,” said Travis Beaven, COO UIEvolution.  ”Our customers usage and the demand for these applications made expanding globally a logical extension for us.”

As the market and our customers for this app continues to grow, UIE will continue expanding the franchise to other device platforms and hundreds of new exotic locations.

Congratulations UIE Japan and also to our partners Imagica TV and Squad for delivering this exciting new Dafloid sports application to the Android market.

The app was released in the Android Marketplace on March 5, 2011.  Here is the complete Dafloid Press Release.

This application redefines how sports information converges with audio, video and social media to create a unique daily consumer experience on Tablets and Smartphones.  Stay tuned for additional platform and updated features information.

With the introduction of The Daily by Newscorp, I believe that we are beginning to see some of the first real media and content  (non-gaming) investments into the made exclusively for mobile space.  With 100’s of million of Tablets and Smartphones set to enter the market in the next few years, I think that the market will see other media companies willing to take larger risks to create new experiences for these devices.

Here are the 4 things that I think make this application important: See the Full Post »

Reuters Article

In the fourth quarter device manufacturers shipped over 32M Google powered units.  Even though Apple shipped 86% more units than the previous year, at 16M units they are far behind Googles global numbers.

Canalys reports that the overall market exceeded 100M units in the fourth quarter.  This was an overall 88% increase from the same period in 2009.  For 2010, the worldwide smartphone market was about 300M units which grew 80% over 2009 total volume.

Nokia continues to lose market share in the Smartphone market.  They are hurt by the fact that they are not a significant player in US which is the largest Smartphone market.  They have no easy task back in the US as the market intensifies with the introduction of the iPhone 4 at Verizon Wireless which becomes available to existing subscribers on February 3rd.

Bloomberg reports that Android increased its market share in tablets in the fourth quarter to 22% of overall global sales.  While it is a distant second to Apple’s iPad at 77%, the market share was an increase from 2.3% in the third quarter.

This shows that new Android tablets from Samsung, Motorola, and Acer have hit the market and had some immediate success.  Also given the volume of new announced devices at CES and the price points that should be lower than iPad, its probable that by next year at this time Android will be the leader in both the tablet and Smartphone markets.

Led by Smartphones and new Tablets, Gartner says in a new report that the market will grow from $5.2B in 2010 to $58B by 2014.  This is a staggering 10X increase in revenue from paid and advertising based applications.

The even better news is that we don’t need to wait until 2014, Gartner also states that app revenue will grow to $15B in 2011.

Roughly 80% of the 17.7B downloads in 2010 will be for free apps.  In 2014, they estimate that 185B downloads will occur.  While they believe that downloads per mobile phone will be relatively flat, new higher volumes will come from the ever expanding tablet category.

Let UIE help your company take advantage of this huge business opportunity to deliver compelling multimedia mobile apps. Our industry leading App Experience Platform will help you maximize reach and results across the every Smartphone and Tablet.   For more information, please contact us at UIE Sales.

Starbucks Smartphone App

Starbucks and McDonalds leading the way in mobile contactless payments.

This is an area within mobile that will create some big value for both consumers and retails.   With our business in Japan, we have already seen Japanese consumers purchase everything from train passes to lunch with their mobile phones.  Smartphone adoption in the US and the commitment of powerful retailers are going to accelerate this here.

I am very excited about the day when I don’t have to cary plastic cards anymore.  From my perspective this will be much more convenient and secure then using multiple plastic cards.

I found this interesting article today on ZDNET.  As Google found out, the number one factor standing in the way of anyone dominating the direct to consumer phone play is carrier subsidies on the devices.  Besides the phones obvious feature flaws, one of the biggest reasons the Nexus One never took off was that it was lacking the  carriers subsidy that would have reduced its retail price by $200 or more.

I believe that as hardware becomes less expensive and smartphone operating systems continue to advance there is a real market opportunity to deliver devices using the direct consumer model pioneered by Dell with PC’s.  Of course the issues with carriers’ subsidies will need to be worked out to be successful

One important caveat though, is that the devices still need to be good because users care more about that then direct vs indirect.