We sat down with Emoze to talk about their product, their market, and their views of the mobile market in general and the mobile messaging in particular.

Activity started at – Jan 2007
Entrepreneurs – Moshe Dgani and Moshe Levy
Invesments – seed – The company is 95% owned by Emblaze
Targeted markets – global: handset vendors, service providers, VARS, Consumers
Customers –Nokia, Samsung, Orange, Turkcell, Mero, Tulip Telecom, Pelephone and MIRS.

Q: There are many pre-loaded mail clients, not only on smartphones, Ovi mail for example is aimed to connect users in developing countries to mobile mail.
What is your perspective on the pre-loaded mail clients move? Do you see solutions like Ovi as a threat? Where do you locate Emoze in the future in this market?

A: Emoze today has the most sophisticated email and messaging solution for the mass market, but the simplest for the actual end user in terms of downloading and installing with the greatest user experience.
We don’t consider the OVI as a threat at all (the OVI is only for hi-end phones), and in terms of pre-loaded, we are soon to be pre-loaded on the 2nd largest handset vendor. The beauty of emoze is its diversity: you can mix business with pleasure; you can get your business mail; your web mail, your home mail and your social community messaging all on ONE client.
You will also be able to receive “content” of your choice being pushed to you in real time i.e. news, sports, weather, the stock market etc…

Q: Researchers show that mobile e-mail usage is growing with the development of mobile internet and mobile internet bundles. What do you think will happen to the market in the mid term of 2-5 years?and what about SMS usage?

A: Mobile email usage is growing and so are content and services. In 2-5 years this will be a billion dollar market. Our mobile phones are becoming “multiple personality disorders”.
They are being used for and will be used for just about everything, communication: both verbal and data, wallets; cameras, MP3 and MP4 players; games; videos and more. We truly believe that mobile messaging in terms of emails will take over SMS usage, as SMS messaging is still limited to a couple of characters and the end-user today demands to see more – his attachments, pictures and videos. Emoze believes that email is the evolution of sms.
Mobile email to the mass market is also getting your social community messaging such as Facebook, MySpace etc… this you cannot get via sms.

Q: How do you see Emoze growing and what will strengthen your business case and increase your revenues?

A: Greater global penetration via handset vendors and international service providers.
The widest range of handsets as we support Symbian, WM and Java; the fact that emoze is totally service provider independent and works on any wireless network; and the fact that we are adding different messaging sources and of course content to the ONE client.
Emoze will be your “one-stop-shop” for all your messaging and content needs.

Q: With your experience in mobile apps development, do you have any suggestions for developers?

A: Develop for mass market; give the end user what he needs –not what you want to develop and always go for user-experience – this never fails! Think value when developing a product – not technology.
Emoze is a way of life – not just a technology!

Q: What OS do you focus on for the near future? Do you see any new OS or platforms that you think you will need to develop your apps to?

A: We are presently working on the Android platform and of course the new IPhone 3.

Q: Although it is a cliché how can mobile apps be monetized?

A: Depending on how they marketed, but they are monetized either as one-time downloads or subscription fees per month.
At emoze, a license fee is required for the PRO version, but this gives you everything, all your messaging on ONE client – and it costs less than a cup of coffee a month! Again, we go for mass market – make the application affordable BUT for the masses!
A loyal community can also result in mobile advertising which is a great revenue generator – every company has their own business model.

Talkingmobile is thanking Emoze for its cooperation

Tunewiki the mobile media player that auto sync a song with its lyrics has just released a Windows Media Player plugin.

Due to the site: “This plugin connects you with lyrics for your music, and lets you share your listening habits with your friends through Facebook or Twitter.
The TuneWiki WMP plugin features built in music maps to let you see where other users use TuneWiki, as well as showing top songs for the area.
Furthermore, TuneWiki gives you streaming access to millions of music videos and lyrics right from Windows Media Player. ”

Download the plugin

The plugin is just the begining Tunewiki is soon to annoucne some great new features.

Time goes by and Modu the Israeli device manufacturer that started with big noise continue to fade slowly. We hear about delays and layoffs, difficulties to raise new funds, and about the intentions to build a modu touch screen device.
The most recent official announcement stated that the launch will be on June… but Modu’s launch day is still not here.

With all these factors, the company can use some more money (the estimations are that Modu raised 85-95 million dollars). Today it was published that Israel’s Chief Scientist office granted a 1 million dollar investment in Modu.

Dov Moran the founder and CEO spoke  about the procedures / obstacles that caused (and still are) the delay.
“At first we did not know how to build a mobile device, we consulted with experts, that were charlatan.
Moreover there is no experience building a mobile device in Israel [not true, IXI Mobile, Motorola, Emblaze H.S) so we connected companies that were hurt from the global economy crisis, such as Texas Instruments and Sky Mobile”.
But Dov Moran also dropped a bomb and said that “Canon examines a co-op with Modu”

via TheMarker

Finally after long awaiting, The iPhone G3/S will land in Israel in few months from now, thanks to Pelephone and Orange.
Both of the carriers have released a PR with one hour difference regarding the arrival of the device to Israel. Pelephone uses a direct link to Apple and Orange will use a local distributor. Orange will probably benefit its ownership relations with the H3G group. The model is yet to be revealed and many speculations are mentioned in different forums.

The truth must be told Israel was not an “Apple Freak”, Macs were sold here for a long time but as the popularity of Apple was never too noticeable.

The iPod int its 4gen, I think, was the first step forward  as it was imported officially, but that was it, there was no Hebrew support and you can (still) forget about buying songs through iTunes.
The situation improved in small steps after and official Hebrew support was distributed.
And then came the iPhone (but not to Israel), Keynote after keynote as Steve Jobs and iPhone are becoming a bright star in the mobile industry sky, Israelis wanted the device for its design statement and for its internet browsing experience. The technological enthusiasts were disappointed time after time where there was no mentioning of Israel in the presentations Apple had.
That did not disturb an iPhone community to grow in Israel, an estimated amount of 80,000 iPhones are here with Hebrew, apps and everything else (of course with the lack of iTunes support).

Back to the future how will the (official arrival) of the iPhone impact the Israeli industry? you  just need to give a quick review over this week announcements, evaluations and updates to understand that the iPhone is going to change the Israeli market. It is not predicted to have a significant percentage but there will be a gold rush. Pelephone is cleaning the dust from its CDMA network devices so probably iPhone will be one of the incentives for users to transit from the old CDMA network to the new HSDPA one. For Orange, a network that is branded around innovation, missing the iPhone train i unacceptable and therefore they will also show the device but less likely to push it unless the bundle will include a monthly payment that will resemble what they get for the blackberry devices they distribute. the problem is that an iPhone bundle of around 60$ (like the AT&T) will not pass as the younger audience which wants this device and haven’t had the chance to import it, will probably go for another device or order an iPhone from eBay.

There are many disadvantages to iPhone as it is an internet centric device coming from the US market which is much less advanced. You can see that the iPhone has a 3.2 MP camera (not really advanced), it supports MMS (it appeared in Israel at 2000 and died 2 months later ), and a personal note it is a 3G phone that doesn’t support 3G video calls… Is this really a 3G device??? well of course it is, with an American accent, you get a great internet access and experience, and this is a good thing. Why?! with the entrance of more internet centric devices (such as the blackberry, the E71, and the iPhone) mobile operators have to respond and develop the internet infrastructure / supporting technologies / offers… The internet centric devices actually assist to push the Israeli market closer and closer to IMS (IP Multimedia Sub-System) which is a very good thing (we will elaborate about it when the time is right).