Interview With NeoMedia's CEO Chip Hoffman

Interview with NeoMedia Technologies' CEO Chip Hoffman at the 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Gavitec & Omniprime Launch MRT E-Wallet Card

Gavitec AG - mobile digit, a NeoMedia Technologies company and the leading provider of mobile ticketing and marketing solutions, in conjunction with the Philippines' leading mobile solutions specialist, Omniprime, have launched a new Prepaid E-Wallet Card for Manila’s major public transportation line MRT3.

To answer the more than 500,000 daily MRT commuter's plea for a more convenient ticketing system, Metro Star Express in cooperation with Omniprime, Gavitec, and the three leading Philippine telecom companies, Smart, Globe, and Sun cellular, bring together a new innovative use for the cell phone - to buy and prepay MRT tickets.

Convenience is what MRT commuters get when they activate a Juan Card E-Wallet with their cell phone. The majority of cell phone subscribers in the Philippines are now using prepaid and/or e-loaded cards. Using the Juan Card E-Wallet is no different. One card provides an added advantage because people subscribing to different cell phone companies can simply use one type of e-card to buy their e-loads for calling and texting, while at the same time, empowering them to buy their MRT e-tickets.

Almost a year of hard work in programing, installation, and testing has been conducted by MRT's technicians and consultants, together with Omniprime's management, engineers, and IT professionals to test the end to end mobile ticketing system.

Simeon Kintanar, chairman of Omniprime and former president of the Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission, and committee chairman of the House of Representatives for telecommunications, explains the decision for partnering with NeoMedia’s Gavitec, "This project is top priority for Omniprime. Due to the high reliability and quality of the Gavitec technology, and following our long and in-depth testing phase, we knew that partnering with NeoMedia's Gavitec was good for both companies."

“The circumstances given in the Philippines hold a considerable potential for development for mobile marketing. We are very pleased to again prove the established performance of the Gavitec technology with the implementation of this mobile ticketing project for MRT3,“ emphasized the COO of NeoMedia, Dr. Christian Steinborn.

Gavitec’s flexible and easy-to-use technology offers many advantages such as new channels of distribution, a more targeted and directed sales approach and precise response evaluation. The capabilities of the Gavitec product range allow for many other mobile marketing applications: For example, different data contents like tickets, coupons or discount vouchers can be encrypted in the form of two-dimensional codes and sent to mobile phones via SMS. The code appears in the mobile phone display and is then read by Gavitec scanners (EXIO or MD-20). Codes are automatically and securely validated against a database via GPRS. Gavitec’s code-reading technology turns the mobile phone into an ideal platform for the transfer and verification of electronic tickets.

Gavitec's Mobile Check-In At Barcelona Airport

Gavitec AG - mobile digit, a NeoMedia Technologies company and the leading provider of mobile ticketing and marketing solutions, partnered with Spanair to launch a new mobile boarding pass service.

The state of the art technology was tested at two Spanish airports - Madrid and Bilbao - and has been extended to Barcelona due to it's overwhelming success.

November of last year, Spanair launched its new Mobile Boarding Pass service, thus becoming the first airline to offer its passengers this type of mobile ticketing service.

To obtain a mobile boarding pass, passengers will be required to check-in using the web-based check-in service at spanair.com, or by connecting to the internet with a mobile phone via the new mobile check-in service at spanair.mobi, which was launched in tandem with the mobile boarding pass service. At the end of the process, the passenger is asked for his or her mobile number, to which Spanair will send the corresponding multimedia message (MMS) free of charge. The multimedia message contains an image with a two-dimensional barcode, which transmits all the information necessary to execute automated boarding, as well as a text information section with all travel details.

In order to use this system, passengers simply need to pass the 2D barcode sent to their mobile phone over the Gavitec EXIO scanners at the Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona airports. In doing so, they will obtain a paper receipt with which they will be able to pass through security and proceed to boarding.

Pablo Sánchez, Director of E-Commerce at Spanair, stated that, "Spanair is laying the foundations for the implementation of a boarding card system in the near future that will be 100% paper-less; thereby ensuring greater passenger comfort and a substantial saving of time."

NeoMedia Participates In Mobile World Congress

NeoMedia Technologies, the global leader in camera-initiated transactions for mobile devices, and Gavitec AG - mobile digit, the leading provider of mobile ticketing technologies and marketing solutions, are participating in one of the world's most important events convening the mobile scene: the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, taking place from February 11th - February 14th. It is the major industry event for companies like NeoMedia and Gavitec who aim to shape the mobile industry future with revolutionary ideas.

Below you will find pictures of NeoMedia's booth, the company's table at the press event, and NeoMedia's CEO William Hoffman being interviewed on the Show Stoppers stage by bnetTV. Please enjoy the following pictures from the 2008 Mobile World Congress.

GS1 Austria & NeoMedia Partner For ITnT

NeoMedia Technologies, the global leader in camera-initiated transactions for mobile devices, and Gavitec AG - mobile digit, the leading provider of mobile ticketing technologies and marketing solutions, have partnered with GS1 Austria and will be joining together for the ITnT Trade Fair in Vienna from February 5th through the 7th.

The ITnT reflects the entire IT & telecommunications market for innovative products, services and solutions. Domestic, foreign and multinational exhibitors gather in the two show halls to present solutions to make everyday work easier and to optimize corporate work flow. Expect all this and much more at the ITnT 2008. Visitors can also benefit from many top quality side events. There will be speeches, discussions and presentations covering all ICT issues.

GS1 is a global organization dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains globally and across multiple sectors. The GS1 System of standards is the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world.

GS1's main activity is the development of the GS1 System, a series of standards designed to improve supply chain management. The GS1 System is composed of four key product areas: Barcodes (used to automatically identify things), eCom (electronic business messaging allowing automatic electronic transmission of data), GDSN (Global Data Synchronization Network which allows partners to have consistent item data in their systems at the same time) and EPCglobal (which uses RFID technology to immediately track an item).

GS1 was formed when the Uniform Code Council (UCC) and the Electronic Commerce Council of Canada (ECCC) joined EAN International. UCC has become GS1 US and ECCC has become GS1 Canada. It has headquarters in Brussels (Belgium) and Lawrenceville, New Jersey (USA). There are also Member Organization offices in over 100 countries globally.

By turning "old" media into "new" media, NeoMedia enables print and broadcast media to become interactive with their target audience using 2D barcodes and mobile networks, by-passing search engines and long URLs, avoiding cumbersome menus, replacing toll-free service and delivering real-time content that can be carried away with the consumer on the mobile. NeoMedia offers the tools and infrastructure for wireless carriers, brands, mobile phone manufactures and media companies to make optical messaging (OMS) and its associated commerce easy, universal, and reliable – worldwide. To provide a robust high-performance infrastructure for the processing of optical codes, NeoMedia extends their offering with award-winning Gavitec technology. Located in Germany, Gavitec AG - mobile digit is an industry leader in the development and distribution of mobile scanners and software for mobile applications. In addition, Gavitec provides standardized and individual solutions for mobile marketing, couponing, ticketing and payment systems.