Solaiemes contribution to Open Source

Our R&D department in its constant work of looking for better solutions than currently available have developed a new technology for improving performance when using GStreamer invocated from Java. Available solutions like gstreamer-java which are JNA based achieve the objective of allowing that communication but a very high cost in resources. When facing use cases with low communication needs it is useful, but when processing media, which requires a lot of communication, it becomes highly resource consuming.
Our new approach, JNI based, outperforms this solutions achieving in the best case a x100 performance increase. Not all are good news, Java abstractions are lost and is necessary to use pointers in Java like plain C. We consider it a cost effective trade-off.

This kind of innovation in technology is what makes Solaiemes products be so competitive in the market and proves that innovation pays off. We believe that releasing this software to the open software community will be beneficial for both parties, as we can cooperate to have a better solution and make it available to the world.

Find the code/additional info/forum here

Miguel A. Cabrera

Yahoo! Connected TV !!! Welcome

The digital convergence is here, and come here to stay. Yahoo come back, and in our opinion with an interesting play. The Yahoo Connected TV seems a better way to integrate internet "on TV screen" than the approach of running a full browser. The TV Widgets seem "the more usable" way to make arrive interactivity and the web to the home TV's. Non-Geek people can find in this technology a low entry (complexity) barrier to finally BE DIGITAL. TV manufacturers as Samsung, Sony & LG started to integrate the platform and offer to the public, and giants of media and internet as CBS and eBay among others had developed their own widgets. Intel is also involved. Now, while in most European countries are discussing about how deploy "interactivity" with DTT, perhaps the Connected TV is the real fast track and what is more important, more open.
Solaiemes is focused in digital convergence, and we foresee interesting possibilities to make arrive communication solutions directly from communication devices to the "big screen" of non-geek people and also offer new complex and high added value combining multimedia communications between mobile and TV spaces.
Stay tunned, we will post further :-)

We submitted our entry :-) Mobile User Experince Awards

We just submitted our entry to the MEX2009 (Mobile User Experience Awards Event).
In spite of most of entries are about mobile applications, our entry is about our AVISG platform, trying to improve usability from the network side, and make it compatible with as many devices as possible, not only for high-tier smartphone users. With AVISG whatever web/wap site become multimodal and could browsed using the voice.
You can rate our entry and comment. As usual, whatever feedback and suggestions more than welcomed.

Our first customer in the U.S.

We are glad to unveil our first customer in USA, NoteVault. NoteVault is based in San Diego, California and could be considered the leader in voice-to-text mobile reporting solutions for the construction industry. NoteVault enables superintendents to quickly and easily report project activity from the field using nothing but their voice and their mobile phone and now they will add video for live reporting and assistance (using LiveServe).
NoteVault CEO, Peter Lasensky is a serial entreprenur with an impressive background in both, construction and communication technology. For us, this agreement is not only a commercial agreement, it proves that entrepreneurs can find synergies to deliver best in class use cases for their customers.

Oracle adquiring Sun, our opinion.

Now, it is official, Oracle adquires Sun, amazing news. Both were innovating companies changing the world. The competition and the commodity HW becoming very powerful, Linux becoming highly reliable damaged the core business of Sun Microsystems but not its envision and innovative aim. From the start-up perspective, we hope JAVA and MySQL not being "frozen" or discontinued, as they are common plaforms for continous innovation :-)
Regarding the pure M&A perspective, we welcome the Oracle move. The Sun core business was progressively eroded and being the IBM-Sun merge difficult due to monopolistic control, Oracle had the chance to wait and try to adquire cheaper in a few months BUT TIME IS GOLD and they preferred to do now, congratulations. If both companies had a lot of sinergies, Oracle has a lot of cash for investment, if other players as Cisco are coming into new business (Unified Computing), then, no reason to wait.
We are sure about seeing more merges and adquisitions involving huge "flagship" companies along these economical downturn times. The lesson to be learnt by middle size companies, with positive cash, is about they have a huge ocean of opportunities, when VC funding becoming scarce, to expand their portfolio investing/merging/adquiring early stage technology or service companies. Perhaps if VC firms are being so shy for a while, time to M&A focused on SME to "upgrade" their role from supporting actor to the leading role.
Let us turn crisis into opportunity.

Solaiemes VP to speak at IMS 2.0 WorldForum

Luis Valencia, our IMS Products VP is one of the selected speakers of the 6th IMS 2.0 WorldForum next 28-30th April in Barcelona.
Luis will be introducing the keynote "What does the End User Want and How Can IMS Fit the Bill?" and later participating in the pannel "Strategies to Addressing the End User’s Needs from IMS".
Solaiemes learnt from final potential and early adopters "communication solutions" users what they need from the current and future networks. Multimedia capabilities enable a lot of added value use cases, both enterprise/government and mass market fields, eager to be adopted. The lack of compatible services (too much focused the market on device applications, with no compatibility with different mobile OS) and the unknown cost of data traffic involved with the service were two big stones in the middle of the road.
Fortunately, now, RCS initiative and the each time more extended "flat rate and/or stepped semi-flat rates" billing data traffic will help to boost IMS and got their maximum potential.
Solaiemes is one of the companies believing in the future of IMS, developing Application Servers to provide "communication solutions", premise and mobile_cloud/hosted, making real use cases of VideoShare, PTT, Presence, VoIP and VideoIP in mobile / convergence spaces with particular focused on mobile/web2.0 interaction. We are pleased to share this important forum with speakers and delegates from hugest carriers as Telefonica, France Telecom, TeliaSonera, Telenor, KPN, telecom top suppliers as Ericsson, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and also succesful mobile start-up's colleagues.

Solaiemes signs the Open Cloud Manifesto

Solaiemes joined the Open Cloud Manifesto initiative. The ultimate goal of the Manifesto is to make the cloud as open and valuable as possible. Solaiemes believes in the cloud not only for enterprise or personal computing areas but mobility cloud based solutions.
We are happy joining the list of supporters including huge companies as Cisco, Sun, AT&T, Telefonica, IBM and also amazing start-ups.
We are glad to see spanish start-up's very focused in exploring the possibilities in the cloud as SaaS areas as EyeOS, Abiquo, Litebi and others also joining.
We strongly believe in openess as global opportunity and consider a huge step in the right way to find huge companies also supporting standards and looking for an extended community including start-up's of the ecosystem of "the cloud" that is being placed as "early stage". We think this "spirit of collaboration" will be a key point to succed both, technology and ecosystem.

To download the full manifesto in pdf here.

First time at CTIA Wireless

Solaiemes exhibited first time at CTIA Wireless (Las Vegas, NV, US, 1-3 April). We had just arrived from this experience and our feeling is very positive. Our booth, located at the spanish pavilion was very nice and located in very crowded zone of floor map.
We received visitors as potential customers, partners, investors and also analysts and media.
Our neighbours, other mobility companies based in Spain were perfect colleagues during the exhibition, and we could share some time to exchanve views about entrepreneurship, mobility trends, how the economic downturn comes as an oppotunity etc. Some of them also posted about the event, i.e: Unkasoft.
We hope to repeat next year with more amazing demos and more time to schedule meetings, and generate "buzz" about our disruptive model of mobility.
We want to thank ICEX for the nice stand they prepared for us and how helpful was their staff there :-)
A short video:

Equality in Mobility User Experience, Is it a dream? No, it is a Right

Hi, 2 weeks ago we talk about a "mobile cloud" alternative to "mobile applications", today we want to show with a real demo how it is possible to provide very good user experience for mobile solutions in mid-tier devices, and it means to deliver "mobility value" for everybody. In this video we compare our network based solution with iPhone and a 3G device (not smartphone) and create for both the same multimodal experience based on browsing, voice call, Solaiemes AVISG usability platform and IVR/ASR/TTS SaaS capabilities from 3rd parties.



Obviously, smartphones have computing advantadges, larger display, touch, etc...but we must take in count that powerful 17" laptops are far away more capable than 9" netbooks and netbooks are beoming now (using browser as cloud based applications enabler) the perfect machine for most of use cases. This is the point we want to evangelize as new trend of mobility, common devices are enough for very rich experiences. Carriers, suppliers, content providers should work together to improve user experience for all mobile subscribers, Solaiemes in pushing for that :-)
feedback welcome

911 Emergencies Support Solution by Solaiemes

As previously announced LiveServe Solutions Framework was designed as horizontal infrastructure to build on the top customized vertical uses cases fitting the customer needs with little "customization effort".
We just released own vertical solutions based on LSF platform for 911 Emergencies crisis management (112 is the emergency number in other countries, i.e: Spain) improving the decision taking with live media from field and the capabilities of locating and real time sharing with 3rd parties using 3G streaming (911 Directors, all the chain management no in-situ at headquarters, etc). The solutions can be used also by Police Corps. Watch :-)



Citizens or 911 staff can report with live video (with 3G videocall or 3G videoshare, not needed on device additiona app) from the place where the emergency is being happened, 911/Police staff can see live, everything is being recorded, the records can be tagged, and located, if needed, sharing the emergency info in real time with management chain, it could be done by 3G streaming (not needed external applications).

We will keep informed of new vertical solutions based on our technologies, and we are eager to meet with 3rd parties interested in creating final vertical solutions for their customers based on LiveServe technology.

Solaiemes to exhibit at CTIA Wireless 2009

Hi, we are first time exhibiting at CTIA Wireless 2009 (Las Vegas, April 1-3rd). We are glad to participate in the US Wireless most important event. We will be located at stand 7502-K, in the Spanish Pavilion (ICEX) in the zone C3, find here the map.
We will be showcasing our demos in our both product lines:

- mobile usability, (mid tier devices multimodal interaction with now external clients), a preview here
- mobile&web multimedia (enterprise, law enforcement-emergencies and social media) use cases of videocall, videoshare and push-to-talk technologies, a preview here.

We are eager to establish partnership with local US & LATAM partners to distribute, integrate our technologies with theirs, and try to approach to US & LATAM 3G Carriers (America Móvil, AT&T Mobility, MetroPCS, T-Mobile, Movistar) CTO's and new services leads.
Hope to meet you there, if interested in scheduling a meeting in advance, contact us

Mobile cloud capabilities VS mobile applications

Lately, there is some "buzz" about 2 debates, initially independent but finally related. First one is related to the innovating capabilities around "the voice" in mobile and web services, and the other one is about the mobile application trend.
When discussing the topic of using "voice" to enhance user experience in mobile services people inmediately think in adding ASR/TTS capabilities to the handsets. This aproach in our opinion has 2 weaknesses: a) you are restricting "rich user experience" capabilities only to smartphones and it means reducing the critical mass of potential users and b) ASR/TTS capabilities as mobile app are far away less capable than server based. For navigate the mobile menu, address book, etc, could be ok, but not to be used in complex multimodal browsing by users using a "close to natural language".
The internet trend is reducing device capacities (less HD storage, slower processor, small display, RAM memory reduced) and using a common interface well known (the browser) to run most of "applications" needed in the cloud. (it took time but finally the Richard Ellison prediction comes true once the "network availability, bandwidth and prices are ok").
A lot of services can be offered as a service, using network infrastructure and making really simple launching services, because nothing to install at computer, no compatibility issues, etc. Companies with successful offering capacities or frameworks in the cloud include Amazon (EC2), SalesForce.com, Voxeo, Google, etc...
In the other hand, mobility, the trend is just the opposite, identifying "rich user experience" with high tier smartphones (iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian, RIM, Palm, Android) and downloadable application from mobile stores. Why ????
If the mid tier devices are capable enough, with normal mobile enablers (voice, video, sms, browsing and ptt) properly combined you can create amazing use cases, and the price plans are becoming flat rate, we think mobility trend may align the personal computing trend as soon as possible.
If you can send live video to the web from a low tier 3G device why using an external application only available for smartphones?
If you can use your voice to browse you mobile banking site or google search combining voice call + browser using cloud services (Voxeo cloud IVR/ASR/TTS in this case using CCXML/VXML), why installing a thick client only available to few smartphone devices ?
Even being aware of amazing success of Apple Store, and next to be launched by RIM and Microsoft and Android, we encourage people to think about making things easier, and providing best mobile user experience to the big masses. We believe in the Henry Ford approach, give most of people the chance of becoming drivers, we want to deliver the "rich mobile user experience and capabilities" to everybody, not depending on choosing the expensive handsets. Is that disruptive?

LiveServe, also to create mobile TV's :-)

Till now, we were talking about LiveServe platform as the ideal framework to manage incoming media from mobile and broadcasting and posting to the WEB 2.0, this is true but LiveServe is more than that.
The LiveServe MediaServer module is designed to distribute media to mobile using videocall, videoshare or RTSP streaming. Combining both capabilities we can create even end to end mobile TV, broadcasting live video from mobile to mobile customers using streaming. LiveServe MS also provides an API for ad insertion, creating playlist and defining the live source on demand to be sent.
Our final goal is provide best in class seamless media matrix. Hope online media will understand how they can "revolutionate" their offer, as they can make arrive online video-jornalism to their web users, and also to their mobile users.

LiveServe Solutions Framework (LS 3.0)

We are please to announce our last release of our LiveServe platform. We unveiled it at MWC 2009. New features:

• Support of VideoCall as live mobile incoming stream (to be added to the intially VideoShare feature supported)
• Framework designed to create "tailored" solutions based on "skin look and feel changes"
• Timeline and Geoview Media repository. Cell ID script, GPS and carrier LBS supported to get the location.
• Live Windows exportable as iframe to other websites
• Tagging/edit comments on posted media
• Connectors to personal accounts of social media sites: YouTube, Blogger, OVI...
• The web framework is also supporting VoIP audio from our VoxServe Push to Talk platform.
• Live mobile video not only broadcasted using WEB, LiveServe is also providing 3G streaming to mobile devices.

The LiveServe Solution Framework become the ideal platform to build mobile/convergence added value use cases for online media, socia media, law enforcement, task reporting, emergencies...