Airwide goes forth with First

News

Tim Green Nov 27 2007, 10:31am

Airwide Solutions has acquired First Hop to bring its operator customer base to over 120.

Messaging giant Airwide says the deal will ‘extend the flexibility of its tiered architecture for operators by adding the industry’s most advanced multi-channel gateway as another step in enabling operators to add ‘best-of-breed,’ open components to their networks.’

If that’s not entirely clear, here’s our attempt at an explanation in English. Airwide offers a messaging solution to operators called Fusion, while First Hop’s Wireless Broker product helps operators to build profiles of users and personalise their service offerings. Together the two companies hope to ‘take advantage of value-added services like ad insertion, personalisation, campaign management and promotions.”

Kevin A. Wood, CEO of Airwide, said: “The mobile messaging industry is poised for great change…operators continue to struggle with driving new revenue from mobile messaging services, and they are grappling with how to develop new business models such as ad-sponsored services. Combining First Hop’s service control strengths and multi-channel delivery strategy with Airwide’s next generation mobile messaging infrastructure we address these issues head-on, and our expanded vision will help us to meet operator needs now and in the future.”

First Hop is a Finland-based company, which enjoys a close partnership with the ad-funded MVNO Blyk.