What is Google up to now?

Although I have been involved in mobile area now for almost 10 years, I still try to keep up with what is happening in the software development world in general. For that reason, I have been helping the San Diego chapter of the Google Technology Users Group and last week we had our re-start kick-off meeting which focused on Google’s App Engine.

We had quite a turn out that included engineers, students, entrepreneurs and VC’s! The room at Cooley was packed. The presenter was Chris Schalk, Google’s Developer Advocate in this area, and he gave an overview presentation on App Engine’s various API’s and coding methods. As Cloud computing is growing in popularity, and Software as a Service is now mainstream, Google is now moving into what they call PAAS – Platform as a Service (not to be confused with IAAS – Infrastructure as a Service), where you can do application prototyping and development in the cloud. I was most fascinated by the Prediction API included in the App Engine which allows developers to tap into Google’s machine learning algorithms to analyze historic business data and predict likely future outcomes.

Another interesting point is that in order to appeal to enterprise developers, Google’s storage and service has been SAS 70 certified! This means that they are in compliance with various standards that ensure safety of user data.

Mobility Management Predictions

Here is some market research information I compiled when we were still working on Virago’s business plan.

Market Segmentation of business apps by OS platform – Android is already a growing platform for business applications

Gartner’s forecast of sales of devices by OS:

Created Strategic Partnerships – Details

In my resume I mention that I have experience creating and managing strategic partnerships. Here are a couple of examples of the types of partnerships I have created in the past at Zaxis Technologies:

• Problem – start up company needs to market to customers with practically no marketing budget.
• Qualcomm’s Brew platform needed to be targeted by the mobile applications developers and publishers in order to gain acceptance and growth, but developers were more used to developing for the Java based devices.
• I created a partnership with the Qualcomm Brew team and Verizon Wireless (first Brew carrier) to become part of the Brew development eco-system and port applications for their target publishers to the Brew devices. Please read this article as it has a nice quote from Qualcomm about Zaxis and how we benefited the developer community: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zaxistm-technologies-announces-its-prizmtm-solution-to-facilitate-porting-of-brewtm-based-applications-72586877.html. In return I was referred to these high level customers, I was given free access to the Brew Labs (critical for ensuring quality, device access, support from Qualcomm) and also received support from Verizon for the pre-release devices and also referrals to their customers.

Kyocera Wireless – as 2nd tier device manufacturer, Kyocera wanted to have access to top tier publishers (EA, Sony, Disney) for their content to be pre-loaded on their devices and also to provide these developers an easier way to get their apps onto their phones. This was to help differentiate their phones from the more top tier manufacturers.

• I put an MOU in place to have Kyocera provide Zaxis all the support we required in developing our technology – this included pre-commercial device access, technical information etc.
• We promoted Kyocera devices and included ports for their devices at no cost to developers (Kyocera paid for them)
• Kyocera added Zaxis as a trusted partner on their website by putting our logo and link on their partners website.

What others say…

It’s one thing to have your supervisors give you great references, but I think it’s almost more important to give prospective employers references from the people who worked for you. What your former employees say about your leadership and whether they would follow you again says far more, especially when you’re seeking a management position that requires managing and mentoring others.

Here is what my former VP of Operations who stuck with me at Zaxis through all the good times and the hard ones says (and no, I didn’t write it for her, I just asked her to write a recommendation for LinkedIn as she sees fit) and I’m very honored by what she has to say, thank you Souphia:

“I have worked closely with Magda Remillard for 3 years while directing operations at Zaxis Technologies, Inc. During that time, I was most impressed with Magda’s strong leadership abilities and her endless energy. As a leader, Magda was always able to convey a clear vision of the company goals, keeping the team motivated, focused and success oriented.  It is with this state of mind that Magda was also able to acquire and retain some of the greatest Mobile Game Publishers’ accounts, including Sony and Disney, in the very early age of the company. I would be proud to work under Magda’s leadership again anytime.”

Example of a Strategic Partnership Creation

Here is a more in-depth step-by-step description that exemplifies my partnership, cross-licensing deal creation experience:

• Novatel’s Problem – Novatel products are sold through the wireless operators and Novatel has no view into the final customer. Additionally, the devices are becoming commoditized and Novatel was looking for a way to create more “stickiness” and also have a way to engage the customer directly.
• Novatel was sitting on over $100M in cash and was looking for an acquisition to solve the above problem.
• I was tasked with finding potential acquisition targets or partners to solve these problems.
• I was introduced to a start-up company (not mentioning it here by name due to possible disclosure issues) that built an IT Policy Enforcement platform for laptops that enabled IT managers to create user profiles allowing them specific access to networks through Wifi, 3G, and LAN based on their location and job function. The platform supports various wireless devices, including Novatel’s
• The start-up was at that time selling their software through carriers’ Business Sales areas and was looking for a partner that had access to carriers.
• I worked closely with the start-up company in creating a business proposition that would bundle the Trellia system with Novatel’s devices to offer it as a complete package. There was a revenue share piece where Novatel was to get a certain percentage of each license deal plus percentage of maintenance fees. This solution was to give Novatel also a way to track their devices within the final customer through this company’s platform, providing visibility into the actual usage and for future marketing purpose.
• I then completed full company due diligence on their product, staff, financials, and investments and created a comprehensive report for Novatel’s senior management to evaluate potential acquisition. I felt it was a perfect opportunity given their revenues, future forecasts and current acquisition value.
• The deal unfortunately never happened, the start-up company decided to pull out of it due to their board’s decision to change direction and go direct to customers. But the structure of the deal I put together was still very good for Novatel and it probably would have gone forward if not for this change.

Company Names…

Ok, so this may be a bit off-topic, but you may be wondering about the names of my two companies, so here are the answers.

Zaxis – this is a bit “geeky”. It’s from Star Trek, The Wrath of Khan. When Kirk is pursuing Khan in the nebula, Spock points out that Khan, although very intelligent, has two-dimensional thinking. Kirk responds by diving down the Z-axis and comes back around to give Khan his final blow! Basically it implies 3-dimensional thinking, which I felt was a good description of our team!

Virago – Some people think it’s not English, but it is. It has a variety of meanings, some more favorable than others, and I stick with the favorable: a woman of great stature, strength, and courage.  There was a British Royal Navy had 4 ship called HMS Virago, and if it’s good enough for the British Navy, it’s good enough for me!

How I got my first game porting customers at Zaxis!

I have been working with the business development and product management people at Qualcomm putting on Brew users group meetings. During those meetings, the attending engineers mostly complained about the difficulty of creating and then tracking all the different versions of their mobile Brew applications, and then testing them to ensure passage through the NSTL labs for certification.

This is really how my idea was born, that the so called “killer app” was not necessarily the coolest game, but it was finding a way to get that application deployed to all the mobile devices and across various carriers.

Equipped with some quickly made brochures describing our new Porting Service, I went to the E3 gaming conference to attend the Mobile Game Development track meeting. On the panel at this meeting were the heads of Sony Pictures Mobile and THQ Wireless. I sat in the audience of about 150 game developers who were eager to sell their mobile games to these companies. One of the main themes that was discussed during this panel discussion was the pain of having to understand the devices and getting the applications to work on them and then managing all the versions. I was very excited by the end, and while the panelists were swarmed by the game developers, I waited my turn, and then simply mentioned to them that “We do this porting thing you just complained about!” I had contracts from both of them within three weeks, and we were on our way to porting “Hello Kitty” apps for THQ and “Wheel of fortune”, “Qbert”, and “Charlie’s Angels” for Sony!

Welcome to my e-Resume!

In today’s new paradigm, it occurred to me that a plain resume will not give a prospective employer a full picture about me as a viable candidate, so I created here a way for you to get to know me better!

To me a job is much more than that, it is where I devote my time and energy for my organization to not only reach, but also exceed its goals. This may be in an operational role in streamlining current operations to increase productivity and lower costs or in a customer-facing role helping to drive revenues.  I am an accomplished high tech professional with a rich mix of experiences building technology products and services with successful achievements in wireless telecommunications as well as mobile and internet software development areas.

What others say about me:

“Magda is a seasoned professional, detail oriented and hard worker, never resting until the task at hand is comleted or the solution has been identified. I strongly recommend Magda and hope to work with her again in the future.” K.Lang, former CEO, SensorWave Technology, Inc. 

“Magda is a trustworthy provider of technical services and provided on-time and high quality deliverables at a reasonable price. She led a team that consistently delivered mobile game products against changing timelines within a rapidly evolving device and platform landscape. Plus, she is very personable and worked well with all of my Disney colleagues.” M. Beecher, VP at Disney Mobile, hired my company as a Mobile Game Porting Solutions Provider.