Archive for September, 2009
ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY
1st – The Exchange is a market leading provider of technology solutions to the financial services market. The company provides an integrated suite of technology solutions, software and consultancy to the financial services industry, to help support the key stages of a distributor’s business process.
The Exchange is the largest provider of online comparative quotations and electronic new business applications in the UK financial services portal market. Its main product is Exweb, which is the UK’s leading intermediary trading platform in the financial services market, used by approximately 27,000 registered users within authorised advisory firms. It provides online information and transaction services, with 185 million client illustrations processed to date over the service since January 2008.
THE CHALLENGE
As a membership organisation, it is critical to The Exchange that it provides up to date and relevant services for its users in an effective and easy to use manner.
Having built an intuitive and successful web portal, Exweb, The Exchange was looking to provide access to a mobile website to its users. This was important because when an IFA is with a client, they will not necessarily have access to the web portal. They may, for example, be at a client’s home. The capability to provide either an indicative or full quotation during a meeting enables the IFAs to deliver a quicker and more effective level of service to their clients.
Traditionally it has been difficult to create mobile websites that can be accessed by all devices. There is no single standard operating system for mobile phones and there are a variety of different browsers embedded within mobile handsets.
To further complicate matters, mobile phones have different screen sizes, meaning that creating one mobile website that can be accessed by all mobile devices has been a challenge. Typically companies have either gone to the expense of creating multiple versions of the same site for different handsets, which is a labour and cost intensive exercise. The alternative has been to create a generic mobile website that may not fit a mobile screen and can include broken links or content that cannot be properly displayed on the phone. This delivers an extremely poor brand representation.
Initially, The Exchange decided to create a mobile web solution for certain Nokia and Blackberry devices, in order to test how subscribers reacted to having a mobile website to use and to understand more about usage patterns. Once this trial had been concluded successfully, the challenge for The Exchange was to roll out a fully featured mobile website that could be easily accessed from all mobile devices to support members in the Annuities market.
THE SOLUTION
Having evaluated a number of partners, The Exchange decided to team up with bemoko to roll out a mobile website to their users. bemoko provides consultancy and software solutions that enable organisations to quickly and effectively create mobile internet solutions for all mobile phones.
Uniquely, bemoko’s software solutions allows almost every mobile handset that is internet enabled to access a mobile website and see the content as if it has been designed exclusively for that handset. bemoko’s solution recognises which handset is visiting a mobile website and delivers a fully optimised version of the site to that particular handset.
If the handset supports certain technologies (for example Flash) the solution will deliver that particular content, however, if it does not, the content will not be delivered and instead the page will automatically be configured to be suitable to the size of screen, operating system and mobile browser embedded into the handset. The result is that, whatever handset is accessing the site, the mobile web pages fit the screen and do not display content that cannot be viewed, removing the broken links and poorly fitting pages that can be associated with the mobile web experience.
The Exchange had a series of specific criteria to fulfil: it needed to enable users to input important information such as a client’s age and requirements easily; it also needed to deliver usable results to IFAs quickly and reliably. Most importantly the site needed to be accessible from any mobile phone.
bemoko worked with The Exchange to develop a bespoke solution that delivered an effective mobile website within The Exchange’s criteria. Rather than suggesting a solution that would have required a major technology upheaval for The Exchange, bemoko was flexible enough to develop a solution that suited the core technology environment within which The Exchange operated its services.
Both the bemoko team and The Exchange technical staff collaborated to ensure that the solution was effective and deliverable. Considerable support was also provided from Microsoft, since The Exchange works in a .NET framework.
OUTCOMES
The collaboration has provided a highly effective mobile website that can be clearly and easily displayed on all but the very oldest mobile phones.
The solution has been launched and is now being used by IFAs across the UK, providing them with another flexible and relevant service from The Exchange and allowing The Exchange to demonstrate its market innovation and thought leadership in a new area.
The Exchange is now considering the implementation of the second phase of the mobile platform to deliver additional services to its customers.
CONCLUSION
The mobile environment has traditionally been seen as one that has been too expensive or too difficult to deliver a meaningful service. The challenge of either having to build multiple micro sites for different devices at significant cost, or relying upon automatically re-rendering content has meant that many organisations have avoided creating mobile web solutions.
Yet the ubiquity of the mobile phone, along with the increasing number of people who are using data services on mobile means that it is difficult for organisations to ignore the mobile opportunity any more. By recognising the value that a mobile solution could provide to its members, The Exchange has been a pioneer.
By partnering with bemoko, The Exchange was able to offer a truly personalised service to its customers at a fraction of the cost of creating mobile sites for each relevant device without compromising usability to the end user.
About 1st – The Exchange
1st – The Exchange is a market leading provider of technology solutions to the financial services market.
The Company provides an integrated suite of technology solutions, software and consultancy to the financial services industry, which helps support the key stages of an intermediary’s business process, whatever its size. In doing so, this enables users to service their clients more efficiently and profitability, whilst meeting regulatory demands, reducing costs and maximising profits.
The Exchange’s Exweb is the largest provider of online comparative quotations and electronic new business applications in the UK financial services portal market with over 27,000 users. It provides online information and transaction services, with 125 million client illustrations processed over the service in 2007.
1st develops, markets and supports software delivering financial planning, client management and full back office administration to financial intermediaries. 1st’s ‘Adviser Office’ software, is the market-leading client management solution used by more than 1,600 Adviser firms offering wealth management and financial advice, both Multi-tied and Independent. Based on Microsoft SQL Server and .net Technology, Adviser Office and Adviser Evolution link with over 60 partners, including product providers, portals and fund supermarkets to aggregate client data and avoid any data re-keying.
bemokoLive.NET: simple, effective mobile web for Microsoft environments
UK-based mobile web experts, bemoko, today launched bemoko®Live.NET edition, the latest version of the company’s powerful and flexible mobile web delivery platform for content and services.
bemokoLive.NET brings the benefits of bemoko’s mobile platform to the .NET environment through integration into Microsoft’s ASP.NET MVC framework. Developers can now quickly develop one single mobile site to deliver the best user experience over a wider range of handsets and devices.
bemokoLive recognises a user’s mobile device, repurposes and automatically delivers the right mobile content to the device being used. This ensures that any mobile device visiting a web site sees a highly professional online presence with an effective browsing experience, removing the issues of unreadable pages or non displaying images or video.
With bemokoLive.Net:
- There is no need to create specific sites for different mobile devices. Organisations can use their current web content to create sites using common components that deliver an effective web experience to any mobile device.
- With bemokoLive.Net content is automatically optimised as it is delivered to devices, reducing page download times and ensuring a fast enjoyable user experience.
- Mobile web visitors can upload their own content – pictures, status updates, videos – from mobile devices to web sites including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social networks.
Mat Diss, co-founder of bemoko said: “bemokoLive.NET has been specially developed to make it easier for designers working in Microsoft environments to deliver compelling mobile web sites. Developers create mobile sites in the same ASP.NET environment that they use to deliver non mobile sites – there is no need for additional training or to learn a new language.”
“Through bemokoLive.NET, organisations using the Microsoft environment can use their current team to create mobile sites that deliver relevant content to any mobile device at a fraction of the cost and time to market of building specific sites for specific mobile devices.”
-ends-
About bemoko:
bemoko (www.bemoko.com) is the leading innovator in flexible mobile web solutions providing a comprehensive platform for delivering compelling mobile web sites. It provides a multi-device, multi-channel delivery platform for mobile content, designed with flexibility and speed of deployment in mind. For more information: www.bemoko.com
For further information please contact:
| Chris Bignell | XL Communications Ltd |
| Tel: | 07834 020460 |
| Email: | chris@xl-comms.com |
… or in other words we can readily synchronise local browser storage with back-send server persistent storage. This is one of the fundamentals of compelling off line web applications.
So a little background. You may know that you can store data in your local browser database with javascript like …
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 | function store() { if (window.localStorage) { var count=window.localStorage.getItem("count"); if (!count) { count=0; } count++ window.localStorage.setItem("count",count); } } window.onload = function() { store(); } |
and you can even see it in action here, if you got a decent browser such as the latest iPhone 3, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4.
But this ain’t much good if you can’t get this data back to the server to do something useful with it, e.g. share with friends, share with your other devices, keep a backup, send a message … I could go on.
So what we really need is a way to easily listen out to storage events and deal with it in one place. Yep, we could create our own Javascript framework to do this and handle getters and setters, but that sounds nasty to me.
Instead we can know use the onstorage attribute on the HTML body tag to hook into a function that will handle all of these call backs based on local stored data.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | function store() { if (window.localStorage) { var count=window.localStorage.getItem("count"); if (!count) { count=0; } count++ window.localStorage.setItem("count",count); } } function handleOnStorage() { myFunctionToSendDataToServer(event.key, event.newValue, event.oldValue); } window.onload = function() { document.body.setAttribute("onstorage", "handleOnStorage();"); store(); } |
Take a look at it in action here in the bemoko mobile test suite. It works on iPhone 3 and Safari 4. You can even see the complete code here.
Imagine if radio came along after television.
… would the first radio shows simply have been recordings off the TV?
Before the days of video recorders I used to sit and record the television with the new shiny mic onto cheap D90s I’d bought from the market. The novelty soon wore off and none of my friends seemed that interested in my recordings.
We’ve grown accustomed to see TV and radio as two very different media channels. In particular we don’t consider the radio as a lesser medium even though from a simple point of view it’s just a constrained TV. I love the radio – in fact I spend more time listening to the radio than I do watching the TV. Why? Not because I think there’s better content on the radio, and not because I think it’s physically better than the TV – more because it fits comfortably into my way of life and my context.
I work quite a bit – and I learnt pretty early on that I can’t work whilst watching the TV. Took me a while to realise that and I still experiment with it, but basically if I’m front of a TV I don’t get any work done. However the radio fits my mood – I can put on some back ground music, or even talk programs, to give me inspiration. It doesn’t tear my attention away and in some respects can enhance my work environment.
I do quite a bit of DIY, housework – my old paint splattered radio follows me around. I’m often amazed at how long a couple of AA batteries power the damn thing, even though I leave it on too much. It falls off tables, sit’s in damp rooms … it’s so simple and portable and it goes on broadcasting for me.
I can safely say I’ve never tried to watch a TV and drive. Don’t think I’ll ever give that a go, but I obviously do listen to the radio in the car. When good programs are on I don’t even mind sitting in traffic as it gives me a little time to think and relax … as long as it’s not too much traffic.
Radio production has learnt from the strengths of the audio only medium. You can in fact do things you can’t do on a TV, perhaps because of the limited budgets but perhaps because you can create an experience not possible when you’re distracted by the images. It reminds me of the classic line in Educating Rita when, in response to “Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt” , … she simply replied … “Do it on the radio. ”
So where does this sit with mobile …
As we start to explore the opportunities with mobile, we’ll start to exploit the true value in an always on, context aware, portable communication channel. We’re starting to see it already. Rummble provide an excellent location based personalised recommendation service. facebook is being accessed regularly from mobile devices by over a quarter of it’s users to keep in touch with their community.
I see the next few years as pretty exciting, as we grab this mobile medium and let it power people’s lives. It’s why I’m spending a good bit of time at bemoko refining the way that we take everything we’ve learnt and created in the web world to power the mobile enabled web; taking the unique benefits of mobile to create experiences we only dreamed of before.
Today marks an Android first: the launch of the T-Mobile Pulse – the first PAYG Android device on the market.
Priced at under £180 this could be exactly what’s needed for Android to move beyond the luxury smartphone market into more mainstream adoption. Infact, this price puts it cheaper than the popular Nokia 5800 XpressMusic on T-Mobile’s current pay-as-you-go price list.
T-Mobile Pulse (image from techcrunch.com)
Using the same processor as the HTC Hero (a Qualcomm MSM7200A for those that like detail) it’s not obvious that many corners have been cut; although the case design isn’t up there with the Hero, and certainly reminds me a little of an old HTC Touch Winmo handset.
Screenwise, the resolution is standard Android at 320×480, although physically its reported to be a little larger that the Hero at 3.5″, making it about the same as the iPhone. See here on why having a physically larger screen could be a good thing for Android usability.
This is great news for mobile consumers, and great news for us at bemoko – we’re huge fans of internet-centric devices with capable browsers. And the more people that use devices like this, the more opportunities this gives us as mobile web designers.