Wavefront, the community-based commercialization center for B.C.’s 1,000 wireless and new media development companies, officially opens today in Vancouver.
Wavefront’s developers hope to improve speed-to-market and delivery of mobile applications and devices by providing emerging companies with training, advice, incubation and testing services.
Iain Black, B.C. Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development, will officially open the new downtown wireless facility.
Technology demonstrations by a dozen B.C. wireless companies, facility tours and a presentation by Fierce Wireless Editor-in-chief Sue Marek on the global wireless industry and Vancouver’s rising place in it are also planned.
The 7,000-square-foot Wavefront facility has been outfitted with an impressive array of testing equipment required to support B.C.’s booming mobile industry such as 250 cell phone handsets, remote access to thousands more, and network access and equipment for testing the latest
Wavefront has partnered with Calgary-based Mob4Hire, a service that provides real-world, crowd-sourced, mobile application testing using Web 2.0 social networking technologies.
The Mob4Hire partnership is intended to significantly reduce mobile application testing costs and time to market by connecting B.C.-based developers virtually with crowd-sourced testers and focus groups in 91 countries served by 254 networks with access to more than 8,000 handsets. Wavefront and Mob4Hire are helping B.C. developers solve the fragmentation problem of applications failing to work seamlessly across multiple handsets, platforms and networks.
"Wavefront is developing partnerships to address the spectrum of testing scenarios which differ for each developer based on their stage in the mobile development process," said James Maynard, President of Wavefront. "Our partnership with Mob4Hire is giving developers a way to test their mobile applications, leveraging location and language specific data."
"As part of the Wavefront community, mobile developers in B.C. can work with Mob4Hire to assess how their application performs on live operator networks during peak usage times. Although developers can access many solutions that simulate these network conditions, testing on a live network and gaining real user feedback is invaluable in determining the technical capabilities of an application," said Stephen King, CEO at Mob4Hire.
Wavefront developers interested in testing their applications with Mob4Hire simply post their requirements, select a successful tester bid, review the tester report once the test plan is executed and make a payment to the tester. Conversely, they can also add their handsets and testers to the Mob4Hire site and become part of the testing network, generating a new revenue stream. Mob4Hire's mobile market research service will also be made available through Wavefront, which is an inexpensive method for a developer to contact early adopters anywhere in the world and ask key marketing questions.
Members of the Wavefront community can access Mob4Hire services on the Wavefront website at www.wavefrontac.com under testing services.
Wavefront is a registered trademark of Wavefront Wireless Innovation Society of British Columbia.