Wave Group and Funambol Form International PartnershipCompanies to Build Innovative Software for Billions of Mobile Phones
BEDIZZOLE (BS) and REDWOOD CITY, CA – March 23, 2010 – Wave Group (www.wavegroup.it) today announced that its software business unit (factory.wavegroup.it) has established a strategic partnership with Funambol, the leading provider of open source mobile cloud sync and push email solutions for billions of devices, to create innovative software for a wide variety of mobile phones.
Started in 2002, in Italy, Funambol is the largest mobile open source project in the world, with more than three million software downloads by 50,000 mobile developers worldwide. The company’s commercial software is used by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, internet companies, service providers, software firms and system integrators to provide mobile cloud sync and push email services for millions of users.
The Wave Group – Funambol partnership is starting in the smartphone market that has rapidly grown. Many industry experts believe that 2010 is the tipping point when smartphones will enter the mainstream and become adopted by hundreds of millions of people. Smartphones are quickly becoming a worldwide success and their continued growth is expected for many years.
“Smartphones are changing right now how we build software applications for our customers and how we interact with the real world. The partnership we just signed with Funambol represents a major step for us to lead this new market in Italy first and then in Europe“, said Massimo Sgrelli, co-founder and partner of Wave Group. “We are really excited about what Wave Group and Funambol will jointly bring to the mobile market“.
As part of this collaboration, Wave Group is becoming a technology partner for Funambol. Wave Group is performing mobile software development for Funambol in three general areas: software client customization, functionality enhancements and user interface branding. The work will be performed for several types of mobile phones, including Google Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Apple iPhone. For Wave Group, this partnership is an opportunity to enhance its capabilities, address new markets and enlarge its overall business prospects.
“We are very pleased to partner with Wave Group to develop software for smartphones“, said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO. “It is natural for Funambol and Wave Group to form a partnership as both companies have a successful presence in Italy and a culture of innovation. Funambol looks forward to achieving great results with Wave Group“.
About Wave Group
Founded in Brescia, Italy, in 1999 with the purpose to lead the local market with Internet business solutions, Wave Group is now a primary consultancy company in Italy with a clear focus on technology and innovation. It applies its competencies on many strategic markets by proposing solutions for primary business issues related to complexity and change management. These include IT strategy consulting, software development, logistics, contact center services; traditional communication and advanced web projects, training and organizational analysis. With offices in Bedizzole (Brescia), Torino and Lecce, Wave Group has eight major business units: Consulting, Mobile Factory, Communication, Outsourcing, Contact, Training, Human Resources and 3D & Multimedia.
About Funambol
Funambol is the leading provider of mobile open source cloud sync and push email for billions of phones. Funambol open source software has been downloaded over three million times by 50,000 developers in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed by the largest device manufacturers, mobile operators, portals, service providers and ISVs in the world, including AOL, 1&1, EarthLink and CA. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, California with R&D in Europe. For more information, please visit http://www.funambol.com. You can also follow Funambol on Twitter at http://twitter.com/funambol.