Aquilonis helps you sync critical data on real time basis

Friends, this post is from my associate, Ms Usha Prasad! Read on!!

Are you looking for state-of-the-art products to run on your mobile handset which you feel is useful in your day-to-day life. Then, Aquilonis’ suite of mobile products/solutions is the right choice for you!

Bangalore-based Aquilonis, a mobile software products and solutions company, caters to the needs of vastly popular mobile platforms such as Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, Palm, Android, Blackberry (RIM), etc.

Most solutions developed by Aquilonis are platform agnostic and have been proven in diverse areas like healthcare, gambling, advertising, enterprise mobility, calling card, etc. Its most recent product ‘Cross-Platform Management Suite’, a software suite for Smartphone operating systems, allows users to access their phone’s features remotely that features one click data transfers.

Formed by highly experienced IT professionals interested in Offshore Mobile Application Development, Aquilonis delivers high quality innovative solutions to today’s rapidly expanding global market.

Briefing on Aquilonis’ activities and market focus, co-founder and CEO, Rahuldev Rajguru said it started off as a mobile technology focused start-up company. Aquilonis is focused into providing cutting-edge technology solutions for mobile devices ranging from independent mobile phone users to a large scale enterprise. This can be in form of standalone software or a complex system with multiple interfaces and backend server.

“Our offerings are targeted toward mass users having mobile phones as well as for organizations that use mobile phones or handheld devices effectively – either for their employees or for their operations. Aquilonis’ technology and solutions are used by diversified clients across the geography and verticals. We have also filed the patent for our technology with the US PTO.”

Diverse mobile applications
Aquilonis offers diverse mobile applications development capabilities around its platform agnostic solutions. Its solutions are designed to meet customers’ requirements, irrespective of the nature of the application or platform they are looking at.

Rahuldev said: “We have developed mobile applications for platforms such as Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm OS, J2ME and Android. These mobile applications can be healthcare solutions, medical device integration, a multimedia application, telephony and messaging solution or even an enterprise application.”

The Aquilonis’ frameworks are capable of meeting specific customer demand and are flexible enough to customize as per the needs of the customers.

Solving data synchronization issues between client (handheld) and server
According to the company, Aquilonis has developed an exhaustive platform agnostic framework to help companies synchronize their data when they extend their software offerings onto the mobile, PDAs and handhelds.

“Having studied the customer requirements in detail, we have understood the core issue majority of them are facing in terms of integrating their back end data with the mobile application. When we looked at areas like enterprise mobility, healthcare mobility, mobile force, financial industry etc., we saw that they all have a mobile application or want to offer their services or products on the mobile, he said.

Some of the challenges these sectors face are:
* Integrating the existing data structure and synchronizing the data
* Avoiding duplication of data
* Prevention of data loss at the time of losing the network connectivity of intermittent outage of data channels
* Online authentication and validation of the data
* Accuracy and efficiency in data synchronization
* Data locking while accessing similar data fields by multiple mobile devices
* Speed of data transmission especially over GPRS/EDGE
* Existing database and platform where the server is hosted – customers are usually unwilling to make any changes in the database as well as the platform
* Existing platform on which the mobile application is implemented – customers prefer to integrate the existing applications instead of migrating them to a newer platform
* Flexibility to synchronize data real time, semi-real time or batch mode – this is crucial as it is unrealistic to expect that mobile device will always be connected on the Internet
* Security of data transmission
* Security in terms of mishandling of the mobile device by unauthorized personnel.

Aquilonis framework for data synchronization handles most of the pain areas listed above very well. The server component of the framework supports technologies like – J2EE, .Net and CC++

The framework is also capable of handling the data communication either via HTTP as web request or through socket connection using TCP/IP. The mobile device component of the framework supports all major mobile platforms including, but not limited to Windows Mobile, Blackberry and iPhone.

Aquilonis’ synchronization solution
This is Aquilonis’ major offering – in fact, it is said to be the first of its kind by any India firm.Aquilonis’ synchronization framework solution.

Rahuldev said: “This innovation of synchronization solution by Aquilonis is the first of its kind by any Indian firm. The data synchronization solution between the central server and mobile phones facilitates transfer of data between mobile phones and servers of all makes. This framework helps companies who want to reduce the duration of product development life cycle with aggressive ‘go to market’ strategy with fast, accurate and efficient data synchronization between their handheld or a mobile device and their remote database server.

“If you are developing software which is mainly going to be used by the personnel in the field, then your biggest challenge is to synchronize data of multiple handheld computers or mobile handsets with your remote server either on real time basis or with a batch mode. Our framework helps you build an exclusive data funnel, which supports transaction of multiple records of same of different tables and fields synchronously with the multiple handheld of mobile clients ensuring no data corruption and highest amount of data integrity with utmost speed, accuracy and efficiency.”

The Aquilonis framework relieves users from the worry of selection of technology or switching over to a different technology than what they are currently using.

“We have a blend of re-usability which adapts to any technology you currently work on as our framework supports all popular mobile platforms listed above. On the backend/server side, we support J2EE, .Net as well as C/C++ with database as MS SQL Server 2000/2005, MySQL and Oracle. You can enable your mobile data synchronization with the server over http or TCP/IP protocols which meet your business demand.

“You can use any communication medium provided by your handheld or mobile device like GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc. and our framework supports that as well. Virtually, we want to help our customers in reducing their “Go to Market” or “Ready for Production” cycle to a greater extent leaving behind all their worries with custom made solutions. Our framework is fully tested in the field by many of our clients, which ensures a safe and accurate data oriented business transactions at the end of the day,” he added.

The Aquilonis framework can be used (but not limited to) for the following applications:
* Field Auditors and Surveyors
* Sales Force/Field Force
* Market Research
* Online Casino and Lotto
* Healthcare and Patient Monitoring
* Content Manipulation and Delivery
* Rule based data filtering for Handheld and Mobile

Solutions for gambling and healthcare
Aquilonis offers synchronization solutions for gambling and healthcare, as well. In fact, it is doing quite well in these areas.

Rahuldev said: “The healthcare industry is moving faster towards extending the offerings to mobile devices, which includes legacy healthcare systems, patient monitoring systems, hospital management system as well as medical devices. Each of these verticals is extending its solutions offering to the mobile devices, and here again, the crux is data synchronization between the mobile device and the remote server.

“Our framework tunes itself as well as the mobile application in such a way that we deal with the existing database and the data structure of the legacy system. This allows us to take care of data security to a greater extent as we don’t create any intermediate data source for the mobile application to interact. Also, we have our custom developed protocols, which use XML as the underline markup language for secured data transmission between the server and the mobile client.

“Many gambling companies have started offering mobile-enabled or mobile-based gambling solutions. Our framework is quite useful to these companies as their requirement is to sync critical data on real time basis. At the same time, they want mobile gambling to also work on the semi-real time mode so that users are not required to have the data connection running all the time. Our framework addresses a complex requirement of syncing critical data on real time basis as well allowing user to use the remaining system on semi-real time basis.”

What else is in store?
Besides these, Aquilonis is offering diverse mobile applications which are platform agnostic. The other mobile applications are related to telephony and messaging solutions.
It also helps the advertisement and promotion management companies with multimedia delivery platform for mobile phones. The Aquilonis platform handles event-based video delivery and showcasing in order to catch user attention at the right time.

What’s ahead?
The Aquilonis Sync framework has evolved over a period of time and with customers demanding more features from it during each unique requirement of theirs.
“We plan to port the mobile client component of the framework to different mobile platforms like Android, Linux etc. Also, we are continuously adding more features and making it more and more robust even to handle unstructured data.

“Recently, we deployed the new version of our framework for one of the clients in Swaziland, whose data is quite unstructured. We implemented the whole solution without changing anything to the existing database and the data structure and still achieved 100 per cent functionality on the handheld device,” he concluded.

Kyocera intros iBurst 3.9G mobile broadband wireless technology

KYOTO, JAPAN: Kyocera Corp. has introduced its iBurst system as a leading solution to comply with a variety of market demands for Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) in Latin American markets.

The iBurst system is standardized at ANSI and Recommendation ITU-R M.1801 as HC-SDMA, and forward-compatible with IEEE802.20 625k-MC.

Kyocera’s iBurst is a TDD/TDMA system with Adaptive-Array smart antenna technology that operates within a 5MHz bandwidth in the ranges of 1785-1805MHz, 1900-1920MHz and 2010-2025MHz. The Base Station delivers up to 24Mbps downlink and 8Mbps uplink, and the typical coverage is 3 to 5 km in radius. It supports non-line-of-sight mobile communications of data as well as voice even at traveling speeds of 100km/h.

By taking full advantage of iBurst’s cost effectiveness, and its functionality as the highest spectrally efficient option among MBWA systems, it has been commercially deployed since 2004 and there are currently 13 commercial networks in 12 countries. More than 10 operators are also in the process of launching iBurst service networks within the year 2009.

iBurst operators in serviced countries greatly appreciate the flexibility of iBurst applications to provide data and voice services in rural areas as well as high density metropolitan areas. Furthermore, iBurst subscribers are fully able to enjoy high speed internet with downlink speeds of up to 2Mbps, high quality VoIP and VPN services in fixed, portable and mobile environments with great satisfaction.

iBurst operators worldwide have formed the iBurst Association (iBA), a not-for-profit organization advocating the promotion and development of iBurst technology as a preferred MBWA solution.

India announces 3G spectrum, MNP guidelines

Finally, the wait's over! The Indian government today announced the guidelines for 3G (third-generation mobile communications) spectrum as well as mobile number portability (MNP).

First, all players -- Indian and global -- have been invited to bid for 3G spectrum, making it a truly level-playing field. The condition for a foreign player or telecom operator is that it should have some experience in running 3G telecom services.

Those interested to know more about the guidelines for auction and allottment of spectrum for 3G telecom services, can download the documents from DoT's site.

Apparently, the 3G guidelines allow 10 players in the Indian 3G space, including both Indian and foreign players.

Spectrum in the 2.1GHz band would be available for the 3G telecom services through bidding/auction. Spectrum shall be auctioned in blocks of 2x5MHz in the 2.1GHz band. As per the DoT guidelines, the number of blocks to be auctioned may vary from five to 10, subject to the availability in different telecom service areas. Should there be non-availability, the number of blocks may be less than five in a telecom service area.

The MNP allows mobile phone users/subscribers to change their operators, while retaining their mobile phone numbers.

As per the DoT guidelines, a customer can approach a 'recipient operator' to port his or her number. The 'donor operator' cannot re-use that customer's ported number till such time the ported number is in use. The donor operator can only have the ported number once it has been surrendered by the ported customer.

Well, both of these announcements are going to add to India's brilliant telecom success story.

As for the foreign players coming into the country, quite a few are already present. It would be great to see the likes of NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Telefonica, etc., enter the 3G space in India. As for 3G technology itself, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, etc., should be considered as well.

Oh yes, there's some good news for those itching to use the Apple iPhone 3G. Once, the 3G networks are in place, there's nothing that can stop this from happening.

On the MNP front, a good majority of Indian subscribers are on prepaid. So, there may be quite a few changeovers happening! It could well prove to be a nightmare for the operators, but then, that's the fun of having a level-playing field and the challenge of playing in the booming Indian telecom market.

Postscrpt: A reader, Abhshek, left a very interesting and relevant comment regarding 3G services that users could be charged heftily. I quite agree with him! The 3G operators would need to price their services right. It should be win-win for both operators and users.

To start off, service charges could possibly be on the higher side, as the 3G licenses won't come cheap, and operators would also look at the revenue angle. However, over time, service charges are quite likely to come down, if the pattern of the Indian telecom history is repeated. Many thanks for your comment, Abhishek.

Trends in fixed-mobile convergence

Kudos to my colleague, Idhries Ahmad, for having put together a wonderful piece on fixed-mobile convergence (FMC). Click here to read this special!

I would just like to highlight the trends on FMC in India. FMC is definitely at a very early stage in the Asia-Pacific region itself, and probably nascent in India.

Akshay Agarwal, Ecosystem Partner Manager - India & Korea, Texas Instruments, India forecasts that service providers in India may start with pre-IMS, skip UMA and may jump to IMS directly. Besides, the successful adoption of FMC would also depend on the deployment of 3G and Wi-Fi. Pre-IMS services could mainly be applications such as instant messaging and photo sharing.

The contribution of value-added services (VAS) has been steadily increasing and is likely to form a major portion of FMC revenues in the near future. Even as the FMC services market gains traction, the go-to-market strategy of service providers should be to provide a variety of FMC-compliant dual-mode handsets to customers.

At this point, the Indian telcos are still focused on meeting the high demand for basic voice services, and are gradually opening up to generating demand for converged service offerings.

Rising income, declining handset prices, and an increased awareness of viable mobile services among masses has led to the growing adoption of mobility solutions. The major areas of growth will be the youth segment and the rural areas.

FMC could be the solution to provide rich media services to the end customers. It may facilitate both fixed and mobile operators a magical solution to provide high-end services to subscribers, further entail the convergence of access networks, and help the operators to integrate their forces to tap the huge potential of rural India.