mBricks has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the AO Global 250 Winners. Inclusion in the AO Global 250 signifies major developments in the creation of new business opportunities in the global technology industries. mBricks was specially selected as one of 47 companies in the category ‘Mobile’  by the AlwaysOn editorial team and other industry experts spanning the globe, based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz. 

“The AO Global 250 winners have excelled in key strategic areas in the global technology markets,” said Tony Perkins, founder and CEO of AlwaysOn. “We congratulate them for their success in introducing new tools, services, and platforms that are driving the next phase of innovation and creating real value at an economically uncertain time.”

The AO Global 250 was nominated by a panel of industry experts in the online technology, media, entertainment, enterprise and greentech sectors from around the world. A full list of all the AO Global 250 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn Web site.

For us at mBricks this is a significant acknowledgement of our business idea; enabling the shift to mobility for enterprises with strong market positions in the world of PC. We belive enterprises will experience more satisfied customers as well as increased revenues when making their PC-based services available on regular mobile phones. The AO Global 250 nomination shows that leading industry experts share our vision.

Testing is part of software development, and is essential to any QA strategy. For mBricks this is not an exception, and at PACA MOBILE CENTER (PMC) we can exploit more than 800 + different mobile devices to make sure we do face the device fragmentation in a satisfactory way. 

After spending a week at PMC’s premise in Marseille, France, testing mBricks on various mobile devices released on the European marked, we can verify the challenge of device fragmentation.

The test results confirm that we are compatible to the vast number of devices, regardless of various OS, feature packs, screen resolutions, keycodes, etc.

 
Since mBricks first release in 2005, we have focused on supporting as many Java ME compatible devices as possible. Device fragmentation really gives us a challenge, and the only way to know for sure that we are compatible is by extensive testing. 

We do test on real devices before our releases, which involve a representative selection of released devices. With the extraordinary collection of different devices at PMC, we could spend hour after hour testing and verify our compatibility. PMC staff members gave us extremely good service and endorsement to make sure our visit and time line were utilised to the maximum. Special thanks to Richard and Jerry for making our time in Marseille very productive. We will based on the gained experience continue cooperating with PMC for further testing. 

Why test when you have a technical device description from the device manufacturer? Off course by collecting the necessarily information, we may say we do support the device, but this has proven to be untrue for a number of devices. We see that there are many different ways to implement the given standards and requirements set by the Java ME technology, we just can’t corroborate our compliancy without proving it, both our partners, customers and to our self. 

In addition to testing mBricks, we did collect valuable data by running the mBricks InfoCollector on all the selected devices. The collected data was such as heap size, rms size, screen size, keycode values, softkey values, JSR data, and more. We will, in addition to the WURFL database, use the collected data to provide sound data to our partners’/customers’ solutions, and improve the quality of the mBricks Device Database. 

PMC is a non-profit consortium founded in December 2005 by four innovative mobile communications companies: Mobile Distillery, Audio Mobile Agency, Mobivillage, and Miyowa with the support of IPE, BDM, and the French government (DRIRE and CR PACA).

PMC is a network of more than 400 companies and with more than 60 regular customers (French and international).