Continuing its leadership in employing an open strategy, Sprint announced today that CellTrak Technologies Inc. was the first member of Sprint's Professional Developer Program (PDP) to receive Sprint certification of its application, CellTrak(TM). CellTrak enables home care and hospice providers to schedule their visits and be able to locate staff as they travel from home to home using GPS technology, which improves patient satisfaction, reduces errors and enables accurate reporting of visit data, mileage and more. Using access to location-based services and technology support provided through the Sprint PDP, CellTrak ported their application from Nextel phones to Sprint phones to meet the needs of their growing customer base.
"With the Professional Developer Program, Sprint is offering serious developers enhanced tools to encourage them to create new content for Sprint devices, be able to move quickly from ideation to final product, and ensure the quality of those applications for our customers," said Len Barlik, vice president of wireless and wireline services for Sprint. "We're seeing those tools pay off as several PDP members have received certification to offer their applications to Sprint customers, just a few months after the launch of the program."
"CellTrak was honored to be the first application to pass the Sprint Professional Developer Program's on-boarding process," said Steve Wegner, chief technology officer for CellTrak Technologies. "The PDP is a must for any company that is serious about delivering a quality product on the Sprint network."
Eleven additional PDP members also have completed certification of their applications:
-- Acuity Mobile received Sprint certification for its application, which offers businesses a context-based mobile marketing solution that enables Spot Relevance(TM), sophisticated content targeting based on consumer or loyalty program data and user location.The solution provides the ability to create Spot Relevant content and promotional offers that are distributed through an application, text message or WAP site.
-- Blue Systems received Sprint certification for blue mobile(TM), a real-time financial market data application that provides professional and retail investors with one of the fastest, smartest ways to analyze global stock market information around the clock. blue mobile(TM) provides more content and coverage, over more handsets than any other provider worldwide.
-- ChaCha received Sprint certification for its application, which is a revolutionary new free mobile answers service for people on the go. ChaCha allows people to ask any question in conversational English and receive an answer as a text message in a few minutes. ChaCha is available by calling 1-800-2ChaCha or by texting 242242 (ChaCha) (standard text messaging rates apply).
-- Citrix Systems Inc. received certification for its XenApp Plugin for Windows Mobile devices. With more than 100 million users and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500 as customers, Citrix(R) XenApp(TM) is the industry's de facto standard for delivering Windows-based applications with some of the best performance, security and cost savings.
-- MobiWatch received Sprint certification for its personal safety services. Users who need assistance can press the button on the revolutionary Bluetooth MobiFob to speak with professional emergency responders. They'll use the customer's confidential personal profile and real-time location tracking to get the user the help they need. MobiWatch is inexpensive, works with most Sprint phones and requires no software downloads.
-- Oomble received Sprint certification for its mobile client, which interacts with the Oomble Web site to provide users a real-time view into the content that resides on their mobile phones. Through the Oomble Web site, users are able to manage that content, such as uploading mobile photos to the Web or downloading personal music to the handset, without ever touching the phone.
-- ROAM Data received Sprint certification for ROAMcommerce, which allows direct selling professionals to enter orders, perform inventory lookup, check commission status and process payment (credit cards and personal checks) -- all in real time and directly from their mobile phones.
-- SnapNow(TM) received Sprint certification for SnapApp, a mobile visual search application. SnapNow, using its patented process, provides a powerful mobile marketing solution that connects the real world to the Web through the snap of a camera phone. SnapNow links images taken by any camera phone to content on the mobile Web, similar to the way other search engines link words to search results.
-- Useful Networks received Sprint certification for Sniff, a friend-finder enhancement to open social network applications. The application is designed to allow registered, consenting friends to invite and locate each other via their Sprint handsets using the location capabilities of the Sprint platform.
-- WellDoc Communications Inc. received Sprint certification for Measures Of Success, a rich offering of services to help make living with asthma easier.
-- YouCaddy received Sprint certification for YouCaddy, a mobile phone application for golfers to improve their golf game with GPS range-finding, course map-viewing, game tracking, replaying, sharing, and money saving on discounted green fees and equipment.
In addition to the 12 companies with PDP-certified applications, 17 additional PDP member companies are currently testing new products to reach certification, and another 25 companies are in the process of becoming members of the PDP.
The PDP is part of Sprint's Application Developer Program, which was first established in 2001. Sprint's Professional Developer Program provides advanced tools for members to create, test and certify wireless applications that customers can use on Sprint phones. The advanced capabilities include:
-- Access to the majority of Sprint's restricted APIs (including GPS, address book, messaging) required to permit more sophisticated applications
-- Dedicated technical support
-- Access to the certification process
The PDP's certification process is a way for members to create applications and communicate to customers that the product has been tested and approved to function correctly on Sprint phones.
Developers who would like to join the PDP can visit the Sprint Application Developer Program Web site at www.sprint.com/developer and click "Working with Us."
Sprint is committed to offering mobile content and applications to its customers when, where and how they want them:
-- Sprint has employed an open Internet approach, and the Sprint Application Developer Program has been providing tools for third-party developers since Sprint first launched the Wireless Web on its phones in 2001.
-- Through relationships with third parties, hundreds of non-Sprint-branded applications, games and other digital media may be downloaded from the mobile Internet to operate on Sprint phones.
-- More than 200 different non-Sprint-branded devices, from machine-to-machine to telemetry, operate on the Sprint network through a widely respected device certification process.
-- Sprint is a member the Open Handset Alliance, along with more than 30 other participating companies, supporting the free and open mobile applications platform named Android.
About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving nearly 51 million customers at the end of the third quarter 2008; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.