Firstly: NO AGENCIES OR RECRUITERS! We are interested in pro-active candidates who are motivated enough to find us by themselves.

DEVELOP SOMETHING AMAZING AND USEFUL
Ending the pain of queues at Railway stations, Masabi is an award winning and established leader in mobile applications, focussing on mobile transport ticketing – turning anyone’s phone into a train ticket and ticket vending machine, eliminating queues and relieving stress for passengers everywhere.

See the 1 minute video below to get an idea about what we do. We’re working together with the industry giants The TrainLine and Atos Origin, giving the product the legs to get out into market.

Skills we look for in every candidate: passionate, clear thinking, flexible, confident working in small teams, fluent in English, and London-based, you’ll have a desire to be both critical and receptive to the input of other team members. Masabi offers the ideal candidates an exciting work environment with plenty of opportunity to excel in an exciting growing business solving a clear customer need with a working revenue share business model.

You must be a flexible JavaEE developer with experience using Spring, Hibernate, web services and creating interactive web front-ends, who is happy to work with various databases and webapp containers.

Of value, but not essential: an understanding of secure systems, clustering, automated testing (beyond unit tests!), experience in agile practices, working with remote teams from partner companies deploying products. Technologies you will be working with: Tomcat behind Apache, Weblogic, MySQL, Spring 2.5, Hibernate (via Spring extensions), Linux, proprietary SOAP APIs.

You will work alongside our existing server developer, as well as our tester and client developers and external customer teams.

Candidates selected for interview must have excellent English skills with the ability to think concisely and communicate clearly with others, which will be tested at interview.

About Masabi’s offices:

masabi offices

We work out of a funky loft office in a converted brick warehouse shared with some PR types, a couple of blocks south of the Tate Modern in Southwark. It has excellent transport links, sitting equidistant from London Bridge, Southwark and Borough stations in an area which is being redeveloped with some great lunching facilities, nice bars, world class modern art and a convenient river. Proximity to Borough Market is excellent news for gastronomes, if less good for their wallets. See http://www.masabi.com/find-us/

Again, please, NO AGENCIES! Really. We mean it.

If you’re confident you’re not an agency and are in fact the perfect candidate for us, please email us at jobs@masabi.com with a CV and covering letter, or phone Ben for a chat on 0207 981 9781.

Related posts:

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2. Job Vacancy: Java Developer
3. Job Vacancy: Server Programmer

Mobile barcodes now suitable for mass-transit applications; technology streamlines rail ticketing service, reducing costs for operators and improving consumer experience

LONDON, UK – 20^th January – Masabi, the developer of mobile ticket purchase software for mass-market phones, has successfully collaborated with Access IS to produce optimised mobile barcode scanners for use in high volume, mass-transit situations. The new scanners have overcome the issues of speed and reliability previously associated with mobile barcode scanning and now deliver a similar level of experience to that offered by Oyster and Near Field Communications (NFC) systems, on the vast majority of mobile phone handsets with no hardware modifications. Testing has shown that the new scanner can reliably scan, decode, decrypt and validate a mobile e-ticket in an average of just 240 milliseconds.

[ Video Demonstration here: http://www.masabi.com/technology/barcodes/]

The demonstration video above shows multiple handsets being scanned and decoded in a “gate” scenario. The “beep” is after the system completes the entire scan, decrypt 1024bit RSA, decode and validate of the ticket, so it represents the same time that would be taken to give the “gate release” signal.

Previously, mobile barcode usage has been confined to small-scale pilot studies and for airport check-in where the process is far slower and scanners are handled by trained operators. These pilot studies have shown hand-held mobile barcode scanners to be, at times, unreliable and slow, with regular problems scanning certain handsets. As a result, transport managers have viewed them as not ready for use in mass-transit applications such as bus and train ticketing.

This new product breakthrough marks a watershed for mobile barcode technology by providing a service comparable to NFC or Oyster style systems using a technology that is already ubiquitous. Moreover, mobile barcode offers significant benefits over NFC for non-metropolitan transport systems because the mobile phone acts as both a delivery platform and a ticket sales platform. Mobile handsets provide a complete ticketing and timetable experience at passengers’ convenience, signalling the end of station queues.

“This new scanner innovation removes the final barrier to the adoption of mobile eTickets, and marks the end of having to queue for your train ticket,” said Ben Whitaker, CEO of Masabi, “Now that you can buy your ticket on your mobile and get through the barrier without breaking step, everyday travel can be more convenient, and stations more efficient. Most importantly, this technology is for everyone, not just the Smartphones and iPhones, but even seven-year-old standard mobile handsets.”

Access IS managing director, Roger Wylie, commented, “Having been at the forefront of barcode reading in stadiums and airports, with thousands of turnstile, boarding gate and check-in desk installations, we’ve been delighted to adapt these proven technologies to meet the particular challenges of mass-transport. Together with Masabi, we’re confident that we offer a fast and intuitive ticketing alternative for the travelling public.”

About Masabi
Masabi is a UK developer of secure mobile ticketing applications for the transport industry. The company’s ticketing technology is currently being used by UK rail operators including East Coast and Heathrow Express. In December 2008 Masabi’s design for a secure barcode ticket was adopted as a national standard by the UK Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC). The company’s award-winning EncryptME system has been validated by BT Labs and certified by NIST, the US Government’s security standards body. In line with the latest web security standards EncryptME provides end-to-end security for all mobile communications over SMS, GPRS, 3G and NFC on all Java-enabled handsets. The company was selected as a finalist for the Red Herring 100 Europe in 2009. For further details see www.masabi.com

About Access IS

Access IS designs and manufactures equipment that enables fast and accurate input of information into electronic systems principally for the transport, retail, finance industries. Products include custom and standard electronic keyboards, barcode readers, magnetic swipe card readers and smartcard readers. Access exports over three-quarters of its products and has customers and support centres worldwide. Access ISO9000:2008 and TickIT certified. For further details see www.access-is.com

Media Contacts

For Masabi

Mark Fowler
Temono – Telecoms PR
www.temono.com
mark.fowler@temono.com
+44 (0)7540687797
+44 (0)207 9819779

For Access IS

Related posts:

1. New Mobile Barcode tickets for UK Rail
2. Masabi Secures $2 Million Funding from M8 Capital
3. Masabi Signs M-Ticketing Deal with thetrainline.com

Making Mobile Commerce Relevant for the Man on the Clapham Omnibus

The unpleasant reality that we’ve learnt from 8 years working in mobile:

Just because you can do something with mobile technology

• does not mean that users will adopt it;
• does not mean that companies will promote it.

There has to be a compelling user benefit, or significant user pain to persuade somebody to try a new technology.
There also has to be a compelling business benefit, (preferably with a year-one breakeven these days) for the service to ever get the marketing and promotion it needs.

A surprisingly accurate quote from Douglas Adams sums this user adoption barrier up nicely:

1. everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
2. anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3. anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

(acknowledgement to Faris Yakob for bringing this insightful quote to our attention at the Cellcom Conference in Israel)
This gem from Adams proved almost completely accurate with my own deep suspicion of blogging, twitter and facebook, compared with a colleague a few years younger who likes blogging and facebook but still rejects twitter as the work of the devil. Rather typically, neither of us has ever sent an MMS message or made a video call.

So, as a result of that:
An average mobile user uses voice and text messages.
An average business user uses voice, text, and email.

Newer technologies like Mobile TV, MMS, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and Facebook are not mass-market user requirements outside of media land and the internet youth – so what can the mobile industry do to get the normal mobile user into using m-Commerce or more advanced phone features?

Normal people only try a new technology if the old way of doing it is painful enough to make them get over their fears and give something new a try. The trick is that it is exactly when the user is in pain that you must offer them the improved mobile service – they won’t bother to sign up later on the internet.

mock-up of the ideal location to advertise a new mobile service - next to a big queue, and at the point of most customer pain.

We are following this exact mantra with the Mobile Ticket Machine that we are building at the moment for some of the UK Railway companies. Late-running customers regularly miss their trains – queues are a frustrating pain point for them. It is in these painful queues that we display adverts to persuade normal people try using their phone to buy the ticket – and then use their phone as the ticket, never having to queue again. We make purchasing streamlined, without any usernames and passwords to get in the way, and use technologies like SMS fallback to ensure reliable access. Immediate servicing of the customer is the main requirement.

Our early trials in 2007 with Chiltern Railways on mobile ticket purchasing via credit card revealed a startling result – many of the mobile ticket trial users were not just middle-youth technophiles. Going against our stereotypes, we discovered they were older and more female, on average, than we expected and had never before use their phone for anything but voice and SMS. The potential benefit of avoiding queues in the future was enough to make them willing to try five new technical steps in one go:

1. They were sent a WAP push
2. They progressed to a WAP page
3. They downloaded and installed an application
4. They entered a Credit Card number into the application
5. Then used their phone as a ticket.

Staggering, really – these people had never had any motivation in the past to download ringtones, logos or games and certainly no desire to do Twitter updates. Note that the service didn’t target just smartphones – it was available on standard phones as well, because a service with mass-market appeal should be available to the entire mass market.

After trying a mobile application for the first time because of significant need, a user will have a lower barrier to trying new mobile technology for less critical things in the future. They have already faced their fears and learnt the tricky steps to download an app and make a mobile purchase.

A discussion of the business case (and the related business politics) for mobile rail ticketing is another article in itself. Suffice to say that the service has to have a measurable effect on Cap-ex and Op-ex for the Rail Operators, be acceptable to a multi-franchise ecosystem of seperate and competitive companies, and also enable a quick and cheap “soft rollout” launch to prove interest and benefits before significant hardware Cap-Ex commitment is incurred.  This can be contrasted to the stalemate existing with the chicken-and-egg issues of NFC service rollout.

Mobile is not the mini-internet. It was essential that this particular project offer a mobile service, not just an extension of the internet.  It offers a complimentary service to in-station ticket machines and staffed wi
ndows, which still account for well over 70% of rail ticket sales in the UK, whilst solving problems for the customer in a way that fits tightly to their existing habits. It was never expected to compete with the web, or service web customers when they were away from their PCs.

I think that many of the future mobile commerce success stories will involve providing more traditional self-service options in the physical world – certainly, mobile banking in the developing world is an established success in this mould.  Cramming the internet experience onto the small screen may miss the point of mobile entirely.

Related posts:

1. Masabi Increases Mobile Application Usage by 50% with Encrypted SMS for Mobile Commerce
2. Global Messaging 2009 – Mobile Ticketing and Payments
3. Masabi and GrIDsure Launch Mobile Phone Secure ID System for User and e-Commerce Authentication

Masabi are currently on the lookout for three new members of staff to join our team – a tester, a junior mobile programmer and a more experienced server programmer.

Skills we look for in every candidate: passionate, clear thinking, flexible, confident working in small teams, fluent in English, and London-based, you’ll have a desire to be both critical and receptive to the input of other team members. Masabi offers the ideal candidates an exciting work environment with plenty of opportunity to excel in an exciting growing business solving a clear customer need with a working revenue share business model.

The three jobs currently available are as follows:

QA GURU
We need a tester with experience across the full range of mobile devices, testing consumer-focused applications on real handsets and online simulators, as well as related web resources. We view a testing mindset as pretty opposite to a developer mindset and are really interested in someone who actually wants to work in QA, with a pedantic perfectionist attitude, who revels in finding problems and obtuse bugs whilst having the skills to explain exactly how to reproduce them, on which handsets, without bruising egos. We’d also love it if you’ve experience with automated server testing, and have ideas on how you’d like us to develop our funky internal mobile testing system.

JUNIOR MOBILE DEVELOPER
A Java developer with a Computer Science degree and passion for programming, wanting to learn about creating beautiful usable products to solve real world problems on mass-market mobile phones. Blackberry and Windows Mobile programming experience a bonus.

SERVER DEVELOPER
A flexible J2EE developer with experience using Spring, Hibernate, JMX and creating interactive web front-ends, who is happy to work with various databases and webapp containers. Of great value: an understanding of secure systems, broad experience and flexibility with maintaining working servers, and skilled at working with remote teams from partner companies deploying products.

To get a better idea about what we do and how we do it, read blog.masabi.com, look through our flickr feed, and our website.

Candidates selected for interview must have excellent English skills with the ability to think concisely and communicate clearly with others, which will be tested at interview.

Again, please, NO AGENCIES! Really. We mean it.

If you’re confident you’re not an agency and are in fact the perfect candidate for us, please email a full CV with salary expectations and details on all relevant work permits to jobs@masabi.com

p.s. for those that want to see the office that you might be coming to work in:
Photos:
Exterior
Interior, Interior again
Ed pretending to do testing

(map shows it has great access to food heaven at Borough Market, Tube stops at Borough, London Bridge and Southwark, and commuting access from the Thames Water Taxi, and trains from Waterloo or London Bridge stations)

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1. Expansion time again: Calling All Server Developers and Sysadmins
2. Job Vacancy: Mobile Tester
3. VACANCY: Java Server Developer – Develop something amazing and Useful