CTIA Mobile Barcodes Panel Jonathan Bulkeley Scanbuy
By request and because I wanted to (!) I attended the mobile barcodes session at CTIA. I discovered some new companies and I listened with great interest to Jonathan Bulkeley CEO at Scanbuy.
Out of all the presentations one thing that Jonathan said, stood out in my mind, very clearly.
He said, “Scanbuy would announce up to ten new deployments in 2008”. He also said a great deal more, but after that comment which came early on in the presentation – my mind started going crazy.
I realised that whatever, you or I or he or she thinks of mobile standardisation – mobile operators clearly want a proprietary solution. This shouldn’t have been a surprise as mobile operators pride themselves on exclusivity and tally having a niche service as a reason why consumers should stay loyal.
This might not be playing cricket with those of us that want to see standardisation – but never the less – it’s a fact.
Scanbuy is serving a need and making money from it. Mobile operators don’t care about patent wars. They should, but they don’t. Mobile operators want exclusive services and that fact that Scanbuy is touting not one, not three but TEN new wins is huge.
I personally might be a standards fan, but if a company can make money from these deals and shore up new clients on a roll – it’s just part of the early to market eco-system.
I did have a one-to-one with Jonathan but he was late and we missed each other –but I intend to get him on the phone shortly to find out more about these deals.
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It is clear that Scanbuy’s CEO Jonathan Bulkeley doesn’t care about patents, as he continues to infringe on NeoMedia Technologies intellectual property.
Scanbuy’s indirect resolution process, which they use for their proprietary EZcode, is infringing on NeoMedia Technologies’ core patents.
Scanbuy uses the indirect encoding method for their barcode resolution process.
Indirect encoding (patented by NeoMedia) is the process of linking the target information to an index (364528 for example) and putting that unique identifier into a 1D UPC/EAN or 2D barcode. The code reader on the mobile phone reads the barcode and sends the code data over the Internet to a central resolution server that will tell the mobile phone what action is associated with the index, i.e. access a URL, download media, initiate a phone call, ect.
If Jonathan Bulkeley believes infringing on another companies patents is an ethical business practice, then by all means, infringe away.
However, I have a feeling that the US Judicial System will see Scanbuy’s unethical business practices differently.
Comment made on April 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pmBar Code Sales Tool Is Failing Campus Test
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/business/media/08adcol.html
“But interest in the pilot project, which started Feb. 1 and will run at least through May 15, has been tepid, according to students on campus, in part because of the cellphone fees associated with it. (It costs 2 cents or more to check when the next shuttle bus arrives, for instance.)”
“Then there was the presentation by the chief executive of Mobile Discovery, David H. Miller, whose slide show in Professor Wnek’s class devolved into sexist banter after he showed an image of a topless woman, back to the camera, who had a bar code on the back of her blue jeans.”
“Alison Dietz, news editor of the campus paper, The Observer, said that along with apathy and cost, the classroom episode may have influenced the willingness of some of the university’s 4,200 undergraduates to enroll in the trial. “It may make people think more about whether to take part,” said Ms. Dietz, who added that she could not name a student who was participating.”
Comment made on April 8th, 2008 at 2:25 amPrevious: CTIA: ilovemobileweb party, Medio, Smaato Star Trek and PepCom where I won a phone!