Scottish firms at the cutting edge of mobile technology

SCOTLAND'S reputation as a centre of mobile technology has been given a major boost with seven Scottish firms among 50 of the UK's potential stars of the future.

The O2 50 to watch in mobile awards drew nominations from more than 200 companies, based on financial performance, level of innovation and market potential of each business.

Stream Communications, the highest ranking Scottish entry at 21, is one of three Scottish companies, with Mobiqa and Hay Systems in the list for the second year running.

Glasgow-based Stream has turnover of more than 1 million and provides mobile network services for the telemetry, data and M2M sector.

Trisent, 22nd on the list, provides location technology to network operators

Managing director Gordon Povey said the Dunfermline-based company's technology had recently been licensed to Max Telecom, an operator in Bulgaria, in a seven figure deal "which paves the way for their mobile customers to access a wide range of services including personal security, lone worker protection, vehicle fleet management and work schedule management".

Two new entries to the list are two fledgling Dundee companies in the mobile gaming arena, Tag Games and Dynamo Games, both less than two years old.

Dynamo Games is the creator of the mobile version of the popular football management game Championship Manager and recently announced it is to release a game based on Countdown, the popular Channel 4 quiz show. Tag Games released Dead Water, it's first title, in mid-2006 and has several new original games currently in development.

Next week, many of Scotland's leading players in the mobile sector will be on show to the world's largest players, as Scottish Development International leads one of its biggest single delegations, 40 companies, to the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry.

The companies range from minnows through to semiconductor giant Wolfson Microelectronics, including several four of the companies names in the O2 50 to watch list. Derek Dougall of SDI said the delegation was aiming to show off Scotland as a "hotbed of creativity" and illustrate our critical mass in this sector.

"This is the biggest show in the world for this industry and somewhere that billions of dollars worth of deals can be done in a day. Scottish companies have a great history of innovation in this field and this is an ideal opportunity to meet some of the biggest names in the business, which are there specifically to look for the next big thing.

SDI is attempting to lever access to influential figures at the conference by holding Scottish themed events at the show.

Working under pressure

A SCOTTISH medical device company has bought the technology behind a blood pressure monitor which it claims will give faster results than any non-invasive measurement on the market.

East Lothian-based CardioDigital said bought continuous non-invasive blood pressure technology from Vancouver-based VSM MedTech for an undisclosed sum. Like the most common form of blood pressure measurement, the technology uses an inflatable cuff, but adds meters to the finger and ear, measuring the pressure from timing differences of the pulse.

Chief executive Paul Addision said current non-invasive techniques only take measurements every few minutes. However, invasive measurements, using an arterial line, provide accurate measures though give risk of infection.

"At the moment only around 5 per cent of patients use an arterial line, but if the risk reward was different a lot more people would use continuous measurement."

The company aims to have the product on the market within two years. CardioDigital was spun out of Napier University in 2001. The Wellcome Trust, Britain's largest biomedical charity, is a major shareholder.