I first met Dr Richard Favero on an Austrade mission to Europe way back in 2000. Back then mobile commerce and messaging had barely moved past basic SMS, but all of the equipment makers were promising a future where mobile data would play a key role in the communications futures of many corporations. Favero's company, Soprano Design, had already built the tools those companies would need to realise that future vision. Ten years later, we can all see it. But it took a long time to get from there to here.
While other businesses gave up or flamed out, Favero and his crew toughed out the hard times and today are reaping the rewards, and you can read about Soprano's story and the virtues of patience in this article posted on ZDNet today.
Interestingly, another company from that mission, Mary Brittain-White's Retriever Communications, was also an early starter in the mobile data market, and is still going strong today. Retriever started with trying to push an email service over 2G GSM networks. Over time it evolved into being a mobile applications maker with specialisation in field worker automation and is also going from strength to strength (I've just interviewed two of its clients for CIO Australia - you'll be able to read about them soon).
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