LONDON, UK, TAIPEI, TAIWAN, 8 April 2014 – Infobip, the international mobile messaging and payments provider, today announced that its direct mobile billing services will be integrated with RollTech’s Ay+ mobile app and gaming platform for Android smartphones and tablets. Infobip will also promote Ay+ to its global community of online merchants, developers and content providers to expand the reach of the platform.

Through partnerships with over 70 OEMs, Ay+ enables developers to preload their apps, games and other content on Android-powered smartphones destined for emerging markets. It provides developers with a direct distribution and monetisation channel for apps that reduces the need to publish apps via the Google Play store. The Ay+ platform enables OEMs to pre-install apps and services directly onto a device or prioritise content offerings on their own branded app stores. 

Infobip will provide direct mobile billing capabilities for games, apps and other content available from the Ay+ portfolio. This will allow users to make in-app purchases that are charged directly to their mobile bill and provide developers with a transaction facility that will enable them to monetise their apps and content. Infobip will also drive the rating and selection of pre-loaded applications by OEMs using the platform.

Through its Centili m-payments service, Infobip will provide exclusive direct billing capabilities across global markets. The partnership will cover the Latin American market, including Brazil and Mexico and the Middle East and Africa including Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The agreement also extends to the Asia Pacific region, covering a range of different markets including Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Russia.

The collaboration between Infobip and RollTech provides Android app developers with an opportunity to launch and distribute their applications, games and other content services across some of the world’s fastest growing smartphone markets. It will allow subscribers in those markets to leverage direct mobile billing, which is rapidly becoming one of the most popular methods of payment for digital and physical goods in developing markets.  RollTech forecasts that by the end of 2014 over 80 million Android phones will be preloaded with apps, games and content delivered via its Ay+ platform.

Brad Kao, Associate Vice President at RollTech, said, “Ay+ is a direct distribution channel for developers, giving them the opportunity to maximise the value of their content through partnerships with OEMs. Direct mobile billing is a proven payment method for digital goods, especially in emerging markets. Infobip has a great deal of experience in this area and it has the coverage and expertise that will allow us to expand the capabilities of the platform, making it a more attractive prospect to the global development community.”

Stefan Kostic, Infobip Business Development Director APAC, said, “As the smartphone ecosystem in developed countries becomes increasingly mature and margins are squeezed, developers will expand into developing markets and look for distribution partners that will help them to maximise these new opportunities. Working with RollTech we are able to provide the mobile developer community with a distribution channel that will support direct mobile billing, enabling them to monetise apps and services. This partnership extends our reach in the developing markets and further consolidates our position as one of the leading providers of direct mobile billing services.”

ENDS

About Infobip

Infobip is a global provider of mobile solutions connecting mobile network operators and enterprises through an in-house developed and operated mobile services cloud. Our converged messaging, mobile payments and push notifications services bring a mobile dimension to any business. Offices on six continents and strategic partnerships with major telco groups enable us to provide seamless integration and delivery. Always looking for innovation and new ideas, fostering a customer-first business philosophy and being at home in every part of the world makes us the reliable provider for tens of thousands of clients worldwide. www.infobip.test, www.centili.com.

About RollTech

RollTech Technology Co., Ltd., is a provider of optimized embedded Java and mobile internet technologies for mobile phones and consumer electronic devices. The company works with OEMs and device manufactures to deliver valuable software and services with the devices to the markets they serve. The company is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, with solutions and services shipped worldwide, including Greater China, Europe, India, South Asia, Russia and South America.  www.rolltech.com.tw. Ay+ is a mobile service and application platform, recently deployed by RollTech, enabling apps and games to be preloaded on Android-powered smartphones. Ay+ has a unique social gaming feature across multiple social networks and supports different billing services worldwide. http://www.rolltech.com.tw/ayplus

Infobip contact:

Darko Blazok-Broz

We are proud recipients of three Golden Index student awards, traditionally given to companies that make the largest contributions to university-level education.

The awards ceremony, hosted by the eSTUDENT association, recognised us as the company that made the biggest investment in student associations and as the best partner on student projects in 2013. Also, we won the Golden Index Grand Prix in our respective category.

Awards were handed to our software engineer and student mentor Dragan Bencic, who pointed out that “Infobip is a young people’s firm which views students as a future strength of the company” in his acceptance speech.The Croatian student body was among the first student groups in South East Europe that developed advanced models of project-based cooperation of students and companies, both national and international. 

By implementing real-life case studies, the students are able to work with their mentors, such as Infobip’s Dragan Bencic, gaining invaluable experience in the modern-day business environment.

There’s no break in global events for Infobip teams – this week we’re sponsoring and attending the BARG meeting in Luxembourg, one of the events we never miss.

Headed by Technology Evangelist Marko Skomersic, our team of experts is there from March 24 -27, ready to discuss a number of opportunities in the global enterprise messaging business.

Our unique position in the ecosystem between the two key players – enterprises and MNOs – lets us identify all the numerous needs and requirements of enterprises, and the potential in MNO services. We’ll be focusing on the benefits for all involved that result from MNOs aligning their resources with the enterprise sector.

With a full range of products, services and support, all built upon 10-year industry experience, we are creating a mobile ecosystem in which everyone prospers – operators, enterprises, service providers, developers, and most importantly, mobile subscribers.

Join us in Luxembourg’s Chamber of Commerce at stand #12!

Hundreds of lively meetings, thousands of visitors on two levels, 170 sq. meters of space, 8 workshops, 10 interviews, one huge party – and it’s still only a small portion of what Mobile World Congress 2014 brought us in the dynamic and exciting 4 days we spent in Barcelona at the very heart of the global mobile industry.

We had over 2000 cups of coffee with partners and friends; 80 000+ meeting minutes brought tons of inspiration and insight, and we’re leaving with countless great memories and new opportunities. Thank you all for making MWC great again and see you next year!

Check out our photo gallery below and visit our Flickr for more!

This year’s Mobile World Congress exhibition kicked off yesterday and things are picking up today, with plenty more from our team and of course, the Infobip stand party today at 16:00.

It’s one thing seeing the concept art, but the real-life version of the Infobip stand is truly spectacular and really stands out at the entire event. The construction features a more intimate seating area and an enclosed conference room on the upper level, and our execs have been putting both to good use right off the bat.

Our founder and CEO Silvio Kutic has been the most sought-after person at the Infobip stand, heading the rest of the team who have been keeping busy and evangelising our mobile ecosystem. If you swing by, you’ll be greeted to a warm Infobip welcome.

All this sums up to the busiest Infobip appearance at the MWC ever. We’ll be bringing you more first-hand information and news, and for more photo galleries and updates, check out our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

These days we have implemented a new TopUp payment app within our messaging front-end, in order to make the payment flow for Infobip clients simpler and easier. 

The new payment app features a top up wizard that has been simplified from five to three steps and made more user-friendly, providing a better payment experience for thousands of clients and partners that use it every day. On top of that, filtering and sorting have been implemented within our payment history and offer overview options.

As before, payment history enables clients to easily keep track of their invoices through time, checking which invoices have been paid and when, but now the invoices are easier to search through and manage (by date, offer number, invoice number, currency). 

The same filtering and sorting functionalities have been added to the offer overview, which allows clients to create PDF format offers that can be used to make out-of-app payments. The PDF offers contain all payment information and serve as the basis of conducting payments outside our payments system, for example via Internet banking, at a post office, or via any other channel convenient for the client. 

Clients can now access the new payments service in two ways – by logging into Worx, our messaging application suite, or by going directly to the payments app, which is particularly useful for those who want to pay via mobile phones or tablets. 

Within the Worx suite, payments system remains where it was before (in the Payments tab), so the transition to the new top up service is intuitive and easy. 

Naturally, the new system retains the existing payment methods via credit cards and PayPal. 

Making payments has to be secure, but it really doesn’t have to be hard. Enjoy our new payments app!

After being the first ones in South Africa to offer a network initiated enterprise USSD solution and attaining complete coverage in the country, we are happy to announce that our USSD coverage has expanded to Kenya, Malawi and Namibia.

Infobip offers complete USSD service setup and full technical expertise. Through our enterprise USSD platform – a single point of connection to MNOs – we make it easy for companies to connect to powerful telecoms systems. If necessary, we fully handle the registration of short codes with local regulatory agencies and connection with the operators.

Enterprise USSD is widely used in mobile banking, but businesses have successfully used it when conducting surveys, for human resource management and many other purposes.

A USSD session is easily started on any mobile phone by dialing a given short code. Alternatively, a USSD menu can be sent to mobile phones from a web interface.

Because of its wide adoption, security features and real time communication sessions, all with a response time of 2 seconds, USSD is an excellent choice for businesses that seek a simple but powerful means of consumer interaction, such as quick polling or providing financial information.

Start interacting with your African audience by using our real-time USSD services! Contact us now.

We’re proud to announce that we have recently started utilising Deployment Manager, an internal tool which has already raised our effectiveness in delivering top quality telco and IP products and services to clients and partners around the globe.

With a highly complex network of servers merging the Infobip technological platform, installing every application and deploying upgrades pushed to every server was often a lengthy feat. 

The Deployment Manager revolutionises the way deployment in our company works, enabling the installation of any application with one single click across our entire network. It singles out a certain app, backs up its data and installs the new version as requested by the user – all this while providing the diagnostics of the entire deployment process. An added bonus is the ability to quickly revert to the previous version if a malfunction is detected. 

On average, one deployment over DM takes 5 minutes, while doing the same process manually takes up to 20 minutes. Calculating at that rate, 440 hours were saved during a 3 month span.

In addition, the introduction of Deployment Manager allows us to have a larger number of people handling the improvements of our messaging and payments platform. These are people of different development profiles who can now individually enhance certain aspects of a project, reducing costs and quickening the deployment process.

What does this mean for thousands of business clients that use our powerful SMS messaging capacity every day? It means that all the improvements and new capabilities, constantly developed by Infobip’s engineers, are going live in a faster and safer way.

Due to less man-hours spent on deployment, new features are implemented much earlier and potential bugs solved almost instantaneously, even from mobile. In addition, quickly switching between versions results in less downtime for our services. Security, which is always our top priority, is enhanced by access exclusively done through the Development Manager. 

The tool was internally developed and tested, and has beyond doubt been a huge step in the right direction, taking our service quality standards even further.

Recently, our team traveled to Holland to showcase our tool at one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe, Holland’s Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. There, numerous professors, Ph.D. students and university associates watched the first public unveiling of the Deployment Manager.

We are delighted to announce a business relationship with T-Soft, one of the leading Turkish companies dealing with e-commerce system configuration.

With over 20 years of IT experience, T-Soft provides e-commerce solutions for companies of different professional profiles. Cooperation with Infobip enabled T-Soft to add bulk SMS to their product portfolio, becoming one of the first companies in the country to offer the sending capability to their clients.

Through integration with T-Soft’s system, e-commerce enterprises conducting business with the Turkish IT company gain access to their own bulk SMS module and receive 200 alphanumeric SMS messages free of charge, whilst all traffic is handled securely by the Infobip platform.

This mutual venture reiterates our dedication to the Turkish market and its increasing role in the innovative use of enterprise-grade messaging solutions.

We’re happy to announce Infobip was admitted into the Polish IT Chamber (PIIT). The application was first filed two weeks ago and, after the voting processes had been concluded, became a member of this prestigious IT body. Our Warsaw office Business Development Director Marcin Papinski received the admittance plaque at the ceremony held last Friday in Warsaw.

PIIT has been in existence since 1993 and gathers more than 130 Polish IT companies such as Asseco, Infovide Matrix and many more. Becoming a member is another proof of our dedication to in-house development, as well as of our focus on local knowledge, service and local people.

– We’re always selective when choosing our partners. After an extensive review done locally we decided to apply for membership in PIIT. The admittance of Infobip proves that our company is a serious player on the market and offers many exciting opportunities down the road, said Mr. Papinski.