We spoke to Nicky Wong, the co-founder of Infindo Technology on the future of mobile phone and social media. The Brunei start-up is in the forefront of the Internet and Mobile phone revolution, sweeping multiple business awards locally and in the region, including the latest LEAP grant from BEDB.
The company currently produces mobile applications sold for the millions on Apple iTunes AppStore, and going head to head against the major leagues in the Silicon Valley for the wallets of the world audiences.
In your own words, what does Infindo do?
We were registered as an iCentre incubatee in the year 2008 and have since emerged as a market leader developing the latest in mobile technologies. Our partners and clients encompass successful internationally renowned medium and large enterprises from telecommunication, finance & banking, entertainment, retail, and the hospitality industry.
With more than 40 employees spread across Brunei and the region, our team strives together to consistently produce cutting edge performance solution, compelling customer service and dedicated technical support.
One of our key success factors is our constant update with the latest technology and our commitment to rigorous research and development (R&D) in order to deliver the bestsuited solutions to clients and the global mobile industry.
Your company was the co-winner of Think Big business plan award from i-Centre last year. Explain to us about your business plan in an elevator’s pitch.
Our business plan is about POLYGON, an application store mobile ecosystem with a quick to-launch white label Appstore turnkey solution cater for any mobile operator, enterprise or government who wish to launch their Appstore.
What are the challenges being an entrepreneur in Brunei?
The challenges are to form the right team for a start-up, to get investor to fund our ideas as well as to reach out the country when we are ready. Infindo has been actively investing in mobile phone application. Tell us about your thought on the future of mobile applications. We believe in the future mobile applications will be what website is today. Every corporation will want to have its own mobile application as a corporate identity just like how each of us want to have an email address and website during the internet booming time. In Brunei, we are currently witnessing major corporations within Brunei like HSBC and B.Mobile having their own mobile applications. We believe more local companies will look into their mobile application by 2012 and thereafter.
What are the applications that you are working on, that is changing the world today?
For end users or consumers, we have built quite a number of mobile applications. In Brunei, the localized “OhMyFood” restaurant and food review iphone app is the most popular app locally. For outside the country, our latest English Premier League and Formula 1 app for the iPhone and iPad are very popular. EURO 2012 and Olympic 2012 are in our upcoming list of app to build as well.
Our corporate clients include B.Mobile, Maxis, Astro, Kurnia, MAAKL, iProperty and HSBC to name a few. VfB Stuttgart German football club iPhone app was also built by us. Recenty we have launched our new app targeting the global blogger community, known as Bloapp (short form for BLOgger APP, pronounced as “Blop”). Bloapp allows any blogger, without any technical knowledge, to build their own iPhone app in less than 5 minutes. It is an amazing app and we encourage all bloggers in and outside Brunei to start building their very first iPhone app.
Our initial launch in the Apple Appstore showed great interest by the many bloggers worldwide and we are glad that Apple features it in the ‘New and Noteworthy” section within the two days of the launching. You can find out more information at http://www.bloapp.com.
Another new application that we have just launched is Woopm (pronounced as “woop”), a mobile push messaging application which is similar to the ever popular WHATSAPP application but with many more unique feature and capability. We foresee ‘push’ services will be one of the core for the future of mobile industry as what Apple, Google and BlackBerry are heading for today. One can find out more about Woopm at http://www.woopm.com. Both applications are free to download from the Appstore.
How does your company encourage innovation and creativity?
We encourage our team to explore themselves more with anyone inside and outside the mobile industry as well as on different industry environment. Education plays an important role for the mindset and critical thinking is crucial. Ideas, innovation and creativity do not come in out of the blue, it requires disciplines such as exposure, discussion, brainstorming and knowledge from all possible directions.
Can you tell us a little about what you learned from visiting Silicon Valley?
It is a very different living and business environment. The culture, the way of thinking and working are absolutely amazing in Silicon Valley. People work independently and are willing to shares business ideas openly. Everyone seems to motivate each other and work as a team so that the end product can be achieved and done in the most efficient and yet effective way. The road to success is much more promising in such working environment.
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