HP unveils wireless iTrove
Published: 03 Mar 2004 09:25 GMT
Hewlett-Packard announced yesterday that its wireless iTrove project is ready to be commercialised after a successful six-month pilot.
According to Kelvin Tan, senior regional marketing manager of strategy and alliances, HP will hand over to partners Systems@Work, a local e-payments firm, and Orange Gum, a mobile content provider, to champion the project's commercialisation efforts
The HP iTrove project features a new mobile SMS service that tourists outside of Singapore will be able to use to gain information about the Lion City.
Managed by mobile content platform provider Orange Gum, the new SMS service called Kakure will provide tourists in countries such as Japan, Korea and China with free information pertaining to promotions and events happening in Singapore on their mobile phones. Interested users are able to register themselves for the Kakure service at the official Web site.
Calling this form of pre-sales technique "stealth messaging", Tan Meng Wee, director of Orange Gum, said the model of mobile advertising could be used to make the iTrove project commercially viable. This means the service could be sponsored by interested advertisers.
This potential business model is backed by a survey conducted during the period of the pilot by HP. The results showed that 90 percent of more than 1,000 users expressed a desire to access maps, entertainment and location-based information during their trips to Singapore via a mobile electronic device.
Supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the iTrove project is a HP-led project together with 25 companies from various industries. It aims to explore wireless access to information on entertainment, restaurants and shopping promotions for tourists via Wi-Fi gadgets such as pocket PCs and mobile phones. Also successfully implemented last year was the purchasing of tickets to performances and concerts at the Esplanade via users' mobile phones.
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