MGM WIRELESS IN US BREAK THROUGH
Three Californian schools sign on for messageyou
30 April 2007
South Australian-based MGM Wireless has broken into the US education market with the signing of contracts with three Californian schools in suburban San Francisco.
The three schools, with a total of 5,000 students, signed on to take the messageyou™ suite of leading edge attendance monitoring products which have been developed and tested in the Australian market and are now being taken to the rest of the world.
"This is an enormous breakthrough for our company," commented MGM Wireless executive chairman, Mr Mark Fortunatow. "We view these signings as a vote of confidence in the company's decision to open its own office and recruit highly talented educationalists in the 90,000 secondary school market in America."
The San Franciscan schools were signed on a similar pricing model to the Australian business. However, as an incentive, MGM Wireless will participate in revenue upside generated for the US schools. “Most of the American school system works on the basis that schools are funded on the number of students who actually attend school each day, not on enrolments,” Mr. Fortunatow said. “If Messageyou delivers the attendance uplift we have seen in Australian schools, some of the additional funding revenue uplift will flow to MGM Wireless as a share of the success. We are highly confident both the schools and MGM Wireless will benefit from this relationship.”
"This landmark deal opens the door for further progress in the US using our own people and also through our partners in education software and communications specialists VIPTone."
“These three schools in Arizona are the first education facilities to get with the Messageyou system. Messageyou is a full suite of attendance monitoring products - from electronic roll marking to alerting parents, guardians and the students themselves, that they have been detected failing to attend classes. Messageyou also has a comprehensive record keeping function which flags attendance problems for school administrators.
"Quite often, failing to attend school is the first stage in a young person running off the rails. Messageyou utilises unobtrusive, culturally sensitive and effective SMS text message technology to keep families informed about school attendance," Mr Fortunatow said.
"And the recent school shooting tragedy in the US has highlighted other potential uses for text-based services - the ability to get a message or warning to students using the one piece of technology which is always close at hand with today's young - the ubiquitous mobile phone."
The popularity of the Messageyou service has mushroomed this year. Already, 280 Australian secondary and primary schools have signed up with MGM Wireless since its launch three years ago. This is around 14% of the targeted Australian market of secondary schools with over 400 students. MGM Wireless dominates the sector, achieving a market share of more than 90% of schools using text message alerts.
MGM Wireless is represented in every Australian State and Territory and has a growing presence in New Zealand. Earlier this month, MGM Wireless signed a joint venture agreement with an Indian company to forge a presence in the massive education market in India, the most populace country on the globe.
The company opened its American office on January 1st in a confident response to trials of the service in Tucson, Arizona, which kicked off in August, the start of the American school year. MGM appointed its senior representative, Robin Hamon, from the West Australian operations to head up the US beach head. Other appointments have followed.
"We are finding an amazing response to the Messageyou suite of products. US educators face the same challenges as we do in Australia to keep students at school and monitor their progress through schools. In addition, mobile phone penetration is at a comparable level. Mobiles are everywhere, "Mr Fortunatow said.
A recent survey from the US wireless group, CTIA, found that more than 158 billion messages were sent in 2006, a 95% increase over 2005. American wireless subscribers are also sending pictures and other multimedia messages in droves, with more than 2.7 billion MMS messages sent in 2006, up from 1.1 billion in 2005. In America, there are more than 233 million wireless users, with more than 25 million new subscribers to mobile services last year.
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