Tira Wireless gets the Jump on mobile fragmentation

Mobile content porting specialist Tire Wireless has announced the launch of a new product suite, Tira Jump, which will allow mobile publishers and developers to automate the process of porting titles between handsets.

The suite effectively makes Tira's porting technology available for internal use by third party companies for the first time, and enables the porting of applications across 200 different handsets, as well as between multiple languages and operators.

Device fragmentation is one of the biggest challenges facing the mobile market, with developers and publishers forced to support dozens or even hundreds of different handsets in order for their applications and games to be considered for use by major operators.

"Dealing with mobile device fragmentation will be a billion dollar business by 2010 and the Tira Jump Product Suite is the leading porting technology to address this challenge," according to Tira president and CEO Paul Schaut.

"Anyone developing applications for the global mobile market needs to create at least 100 versions of their application," he continued. "Tira Jump automates this process quickly and efficiently so developers can get back to work doing what they do best instead of re-writing code."

As well as offering the Tira Jump Product Suite to developers and publishers for internal use, Tira has also created a network of software services companies who are trained in the use of the technology and can use it to port titles for clients.

Among the first companies to sign up to this Tira Certified Partner Network are Indian firm MBT, US-based Absolute Quality, and British based global services company Babel Media.

"As a long term technology partner Babel has been working closely with Tira Wireless to help bring the Jump technology to a wider audience," commented Babel managing director Algy Williams. "Using Jump as an integral part of our end-to-end service adds to our existing offer including localisation, porting and certification with significant savings in cost and time to market."

Toronto-based Tira has also today revealed a number of impressive statistics regarding the technology used in Tira Jump - with the firm claiming to have generated more than 4,500 ports using the technology, based on 150 applications written by 50 developers, and published by 35 different publishers. Over twenty mobile networks, 200 devices and eight languages have been targeted by the software.

"Tira has captured this industry leading experience and built the knowledge into the

Jump Product Suite,â explained senior VP of products Gwyn Fisher. "Each device has unique challenges and Tira has developed solutions to overcome them - the Jump technology makes this knowledge available to publishers, developers and porting services companies."