Jade prepares to invade Silicon Valley and California

John Ascroft
John Ascroft
The United States is seen as the big unknown for Jade Software but after some recent success in Europe, the Christchurch-based company is preparing for a push into Silicon Valley and California.

Chief innovation officer John Ascroft is busy preparing for the visit which will be some time in February.

The product at the forefront of the marketing push will be JOOB, with which Jade had success when presenting at a huge technology fair in Berlin.

"We are the initial scouting party into California and Silicon Valley before finishing somewhere on the east coast. While others will be at the beach, we will be working through to get prepared for the visit."

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the New Zealand Beachead project had been helping Jade setting up meetings and presentations, he said.

It was hard to get a toe in the door, so both NZTE and Beachead had provided the connections.

"They understand the process. This is a real opportunity for us. It is so exciting.

"We are working with those guys to put together a hit list and target the people we want to talk to. Until you do it, you don't know how it will go."

Last year, Jade decided to invest time and money in travelling to Berlin to show off its JOOB product, which was meeting with success in the United Kingdom.

JOOB was a high performance solution framework from which customers could build databases, mobile technology applications, a social network and analytical tools.

The analytical tools were being used by major police services because of its ability in finding and fitting together random patterns, Mr Ascroft said.

One of the more interesting proposals was using it on Facebook to target what people searched for and provide experiences that were more relevant to the user.

The user had to opt in for the product to work.

The mobile application market was a "very exciting" place to be at present, he said.

The Jade product could let companies build their own iPhone apps, concentrating on just their particular area of expertise while Jade managed the back-end, he said.

The "Where's My Tribe" app, developed by Jade developers in Christchurch, proved popular in Berlin.

The app allowed friends to track each other with a little tiki showing real time movements.

The app was developed in "The Shed", Jade's new innovative centre in Christchurch.

One of the developers in The Shed showed the Otago Daily Times his friend walking down a street in London, and on to a train station, in real time.

Mr Ascroft said the same sort of app could keep track of doctors in hospitals.

All that was needed was a smart device, such as a $200 android device, for the app to work.

Mr Ascroft decided that the Berlin technology show was the ideal place to promote the South Island of New Zealand, so instead of giving away phones or other smart devices to entice people into the stand, Jade offered a trip to New Zealand.

The prize included a trip to Queenstown and Fiordland, as well as working with the Jade development team in Christchurch.

The stand had six Jade people working on it, a large expense, but the trip was not something Mr Ascroft wanted to do by halves.

"We came away feeling it had been worthwhile."

Other Jade applications to attract attention in Berlin included one which allowed the sharing of data among sales staff and customers for taking orders.

Jade managed the security of the data being shared.

"The mobile app market is exploding. It is important for us to get our product out there now.

"We think we have got something pretty good."

That was why Jade decided to launch itself into the US during the traditional quiet holiday in New Zealand.

The US business community worked almost right through, because it was winter.

It worked in well for Jade, which normally had a quiet time after Christmas.

This holiday period, they could do the preparation work for the visit, Mr Ascroft said.

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