Consilient takes top Innovator Award at GSMA Mobile Summit in Macau

Last November at the GSM Association’s Mobile Summit conference in Macau, mobile advertising and push email company Consilient won the Innovation Award for best consumer application as well as the grand prize for most innovative application overall.

Consilient launched in 2000 as a partner for push email juggernaut Research In Motion. Consilient primarily helped RIM connect to various existing servers it had yet to sync up with, but eventually the company realized it could do for consumer email accounts what RIM did for the enterprise. Of course, many start-ups had similar plans, so Consilient found its first carrier partner in Singapore: SingTel.

Consilient describes SingTel as the most innovative and aggressive operators in the APAC region. SingTel launched Consilient’s mobile push email solution in September of 2006 as a paid application. Last June the carrier began offering a free, ad-supported version of the service powered by Consilient. The new ad-supported version of the push email service marked a turning point for Consilient.

Consilient teamed up with MindShare to ink deals with brands looking to tap into the intimate connection users have with the mobile phones and KFC, Pizza Hut and Glaxo Smith Kline jumped at the chance. These brands’s advertisements covered the users’ data charges and subscription fees, which made the service free to use.

Consilient’s CEO Trevor Adey noted that one of the judges at the GSMA Innovation Awards said: “Oh you guys are a multi-channel advertising server with free push email built-in.” While the assertion runs counter to Consilient’s chronological development, it is a characterization the company embraces fully.

Trevor noted that mobile advertising is much more accepted in the APAC market because many of the users in those countries are used to an environment flush with ads—much like Times Square in New York.

Another reason for Consilient's success in Asia?

“I don’t think that RIM and BlackBerry are as much of a factor over there,” Adey said. “They are just not as entrenched in APAC as they are here [in North America].” -Brian