The Hindu Business Line : All the world's a ... mobile stage

Sasthamangalam, a bustling residential and commercial area in Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, is perhaps not a place you would associate with the international mobile gaming market.

But tucked away in a multi-storeyed building in this locality is Tinfo Mobile, a small privately-owned company that has developed cutting-edge mobile phone games and applications for companies around the world.

The Tinfo Mobile story, perhaps, begins in the mid 1990s when Jayadev Gopalakrishnan and Anupam Varghese, the company's founders, were part of the same school rock band. After school, the two went their separate ways till they reconnected in 2002.

"After an MBA, I was in the family business and was also looking at doing something independently," says Gopalakrishnan, now the Chief Executive Officer of Tinfo Mobile. His family's business included a software and applications development division, but this work was not very exciting, he adds with a smile.

That's when Gopalakrishnan got a call from Varghese, now the Chief Technology Officer of Tinfo Mobile, and the two of them decided to work together.

Soon afterwards, in 2003, they had their first brush with mobile game development when they worked on a mobile phone game for a European company. This was followed by another 5-6 games for the same client.

`Constraint development'

Anupam Varghese - S. MAHINSHA

Creating games for mobile phones is, however, quite different from developing content for the PC and is actually "constraint development," he declares. Constraints include screen size, the phone's memory and handset issues. Yet, it's also quite interesting, says Gopalakrishnan.

Or as Varghese put it: "Mobile games and applications development is no doubt a technical and artistic challenge, but at the end of the day it is pure fun."

In 2004, the duo decided to participate in an application development contest supported by Reliance Infocomm and Nasscom. They wanted to do something "unique and utilitarian, and connected to the mobile," Gopalakrishnan explains. The goal was to develop a mobile application that was not run-of-the-mill and would improve people's quality of life. So, they created `All Minder', a mobile phone application that allows visually impaired people to listen to SMSs and also gives them audio alerts about missed calls. This application won a special prize in the contest.

Later, Reliance Infocomm launched `Call History' — a modified version of `All Minder'— as part of its corporate social responsibility programme, Gopalakrishnan points out.

`All Minder' and the recognition it brought were followed by a spate of other projects and awards. In 2005 — the year in which Tinfo Mobile was incorporated — the "mobile adver-game" they developed for the Mahindra Scorpio won an Abby Gold award in the digital innovation category.

The company also developed several mobile games for clients in India, the US and Europe.

One such popular mobile game that came out of Tinfo Mobile's development centre was Truck Tycoon, which was created for the Netherlands-based Lunagames International.

`Teach Me'

Last year, Tinfo Mobile once again won a Reliance Infocomm mobile application developer award for its `Teach Me Hindi' application. `Teach Me' is an application that uses the mobile phone as a tool for education, Gopalakrishnan explains. Given the high penetration levels of mobile phones in India, they can be used to teach people languages, he emphasises.

`Teach Me' is currently available in Hindi and Malayalam versions and has to be downloaded onto a mobile phone.

Once launched, the application shows each letter of the alphabet and then pronounces it while simultaneously showing the picture of an object that uses that letter. This makes it easy for an illiterate person to learn the alphabet by associating each letter with a commonly identifiable object.

The `Teach Me' platform makes it possible to launch versions in other languages as well, he adds.

Encouraged by these successes, the company is now looking at a range of options in the mobile space.

Creating original games and applications and promoting these internationally is one line of business the company intends to explore. Also on the cards is a foray into developing mobile phone-based tools for the marketing and branding space.

Meanwhile, Tinfo Mobile will continue with contract development of mobile games for international players.

In education, the `Teach Me' application will serve as the platform for an entire suite of learning applications; something the company calls `M-learning.' Other possibilities include products such as mobile phone-based manuals for sales or service personnel. Also in the offing is an application that uses SMSs for more productive marketing. And with such big plans, Tinfo Mobile is looking at funding options including bringing in some private equity, says Gopalakrishnan. Discussions with potential investors are on. Gopalakrishnan is very clear that Tinfo Mobile will continue to create content for the mobile phone. The mobile is a medium and the company will create compelling content that is based on consumer insights and is relevant to the medium, he emphasises.

Varghese sums up the company's philosophy when he says: "The mobile is undoubtedly the medium that defines this era, something that billions of people use every moment and the most exciting thing is creating something that could potentially reach out and draw a smile from the faces of all these people."

sankarmr@thehindu.co.in

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