High-tech six go to the finals

They specialise in everything from animation and third generation mobile services to text messaging and business automation ... and they're all finalists in the Frontier application developer competition being run by Ericsson and the Herald.

Frontier judges included experts from Telecom, Telstra, Vodafone and Australian mobile phone company Hutchison. Seventy-five submissions were received from developers this year. The New Zealand finalists are:

* New Zealand TxtCentre. A hoster of SMS/MMS channels on behalf of clients, enabling customers to sign up for services or automate common or simple transactions.

* Mobile Commerce. A developer of mTopup, which enables consumers with a pre-paid mobile phone to top-up their airtime credit from their bank account via text message.

* Surelabs. A video Security application that streams video to a user's mobile phone in addition to SMS or picture message alerts.

* Australia Viva La Mobile. A multiplayer games platform allowing fast-paced action games on 3G handsets with real-time billing.

* Yambay. The mDrover application manages personnel, processes and assets remotely on a mobile device through a web interface.

* Gizmoz. The Talking Headz messaging platform enables lively, animated 3D characters for mobile and PC messaging services.

All six finalists receive prizes including Sony Ericsson mobile phones, free entry to the Ericsson Developer's Day programme on November 11 in Auckland and a chance to present their application to top telecoms executives.

The overall Frontier winner will be named in the Herald on October 19 and will receive business class travel to the December Ericsson matchmaking session in Switzerland.

Last year, New Zealand company IT Link won the top spot.

Ericsson Mobility World