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Mobile
Entrepreneurs
By Michael Alan Hamlin
Janurary 20, 2003
Pretty much at the crest of the dot-boom
Ramon Duremdes, Jr. and Elmar Gomez took the plunge from the relatively
secure but confining big-name corporate world to become Internet
entrepreneurs. They founded Mariex Inventures, and prepared to ride
the Internet craze to fame and wealth. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately,
things didn't work out quite that way.
Duremdes quickly become a telecom
sector champion after leaving SGV, a training ground for high flyers.
He helped get Isla Communications, later sold to Globe Telecom,
off the ground. Then he headed for Smart Communications - the then
maverick mobile provider that brought mobile telephony to the masses
- when the company went up-market, and added a GSM network.
An acknowledged expert in e-commerce
payment systems, Gomez expected to catalyze business to consumer,
or B2C, commerce in the Philippines. He had enjoyed successful stints
with telecom giants Nokia and Verifone, and was a sought after resource
person for local information communication and technology (ICT)
associations and events locally. He was a man to watch.
The sudden, dramatic dot-bust left
Duremdes and Gomez in a dreadful lurch. With responsibilities to
themselves, their employees, and their families, they found themselves
with a business model that no one would touch. But like resilient
entrepreneurs do, the two took some dramatic steps. First, they
looked for new opportunity, and found it in the growing popularity
of value-added mobile communications.
Next, in January 2001 Duremdes and
Gomez renamed their fledgling company Mobile Arts (www.mobile-arts.com)
to more clearly communicate the business to prospective clients.
After two years of starting, restarting, and developing, the e-preneurs
were ready to launch their first product, an Internet application
that allowed users to send short messaging system (SMS) text messages
to mobile phone subscribers from PCs. They were finally taking in
some revenue.
That service has quickly evolved
into applications leveraged by both major telecom providers in the
Philippines, Globe and Smart. But the Philippines is more than a
market for Duremdes and Gomez, it's a test bed for the development
of mobile technologies that they intend to sell to other Asian countries
as well as in the U.S. They are already selling their solutions
in Indonesia leveraging a strategic partnership set up last year.
A U.S. company has also been founded and is run by Filipinos here.
Mobile Arts' bread and butter applications
are consumer services, such as SMS-based direct communications applications
and sending and receiving e-mail by mobile phone. An important user
of this service is the Department of Budget & Management (DBM).
Mobile Arts has developed applications for DBM that target employees,
suppliers, and constituents.
"For example," Gomez told
me last week, "an employee may want to know how many leave
credits he has accrued. He types in a keyword that we supply, and
then his question. The request is converted to an e-mail message
and routed to DBM HR, which responds giving him the number of days
vacation he is entitled to." The user receives the response
on his phone, although the HR employee is responding to e-mail.
Other applications are geared toward improving supplier relationships
and to responding quickly to inquiries by constituents.
That kind of responsiveness is a
big plus for DBM. But it's especially so because DMB itself doesn't
pay a centavo for the service. "We revenue share with the telecom
provider," Gomez explained. So it's the employee, supplier,
or constituent that pays the P2 cost of each communication, a small
price to pay for quick, efficient service in the users' view. Corporate
clients use the service to receive and quickly respond to customer
and supplier inquiries.
Another popular service targets overseas
Filipinos, and their relatives and friends back home. "We developed
the first service in the world that allows GSM subscribers in the
Philippines to text non-GSM subscribers in Japan and the U.S.,"
he told me. "All the user has to do is enter the number of
the recipient in Japan, for instance, and our application determines
which carrier the message should be sent to."
That makes the service quick, fast,
and affordable, filling a huge, pent up need to communicate regularly
and stay in touch with loved ones affordably. Japan-bound message
flow has been strong, according to Gomez, but U.S.-bound message
volume is huge.
The company also develops event-specific
applications. One of the most popular allows viewers to respond
to questions posed by celebrity host Kris Aquino on her popular
game show, Amazing Dream. "Our application determines which
users' messages are received first, second, and third, and even
measures their accuracy," Gomez said. The program is sponsored
by Mobile Arts client Smart.
Significantly, the company has posted
a small profit in its first two years of actual operation, and it
has big plans for its U.S. office. "Southern California is
the perfect place to observe the industry and emerging technology,"
Gomez said. "And we expect that acquiring rights to market
those technologies in Asia will be an important part of our business."
In fact, this month Mobile Arts will
announce its partnership with customer intelligence solution provider
Narus. "The Narus solution provides the means to collect extremely
detailed customer user intelligence, in real time, enabling mobile
operators to develop new services tailored to quickly shifting individual
customer preferences and emerging desires," Gomez said. Mobile
Arts will sell the solution throughout Asia.
But the principal objective for Duremdes
and Gomez is building and testing mobile applications in the Philippines,
for export to the U.S. "The Philippines is an excellent test
bed," Gomez explained. Given the cultural affinity of the U.S.
and the Philippines, that seems pretty clear. And while SMS text
messaging has been slow to take off in the U.S., applications like
those provided by Mobile Arts could change that.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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