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Mobile & Wireless
SCO Group helping FranklinCovey go paperless
Companies form strategic relationship to distribute mobile planning tools
by Jim Barthold
FranklinCovey, which dominates the paper world with
planners, calendars and other materials designed to untangle
complicated business lives, has moved into the mobile space
via a strategic relationship with SCO Group, a UNIX software
technology and mobile services provider.
The partnership allows FranklinCovey access to SCO’s wholly
owned subsidiary, Me Inc. and its mobile technology to
provide smartphone users with data service to plan and
coordinate schedules, track goals, set appointments, manage
and delegate tasks and use multimedia from their phone or
PC client. The partnership is a boon for SCO, which has been
embroiled in ongoing legal wrangling over its Linux software
platform and is emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“Signing deals with FranklinCovey, in light of all the issues
that surround us, is a testament … to our ability to move
beyond the mire and get out of this,” said SCO president-
COO Jeff Hunsaker.
The deal lets FranklinCovey migrate its planning expertise to
the SCO Me Inc. mobile platform where it can be marketed as
a hosted service for a monthly or annual fee.
“Specifically with this deal with FranklinCovey, we developed
the application in-house, built the platform in-house and
we’re focusing on serving this collaborative mobile tool that
works with any carrier,” Hunsaker said.
Smartphone users, he said, can download the hosted service
from the Web, get a free trial and then sign up for a paid
subscription. SCO, though, wants to make it easier for
consumers to find and download the service by gaining
mobile carrier certification and becoming an on-port
application. SCO has been certified by AT&T, Hunsaker said,
and is available on all other carriers.
“That is the biggest challenge,” Hunsaker said. “That’s why
we started working with the carriers, with RIM (BlackBerry) and
with Palm and others to work on a carrier-specific deal. That’s
ultimate nirvana (because it) allows us to be on deck with
those carriers so it’s available for any user of the network
(with a data plan) to click on an icon and download this
product.”
The product itself is a bit amorphous these days. While it
clearly targets the business users who are FranklinCovey’s
base of paper customers, it leans towards the growing niche
of “prosumers,” the blend between the consumer and
business professional who use one device for home, work and
other responsibilities.
“Ubiquity is something we’re obviously after, but we’re starting
in this ever-increasing niche market for smartphones. It’s
where the growth is happening and we’re a key cog in that
relationship,” Hunsaker said.
FranklinCovey, he said, just wants to move off the pages and
onto the Web.
“They clearly have a wonderful brand as it relates to paper
planners; that’s their niche,” he said. “They’re not a
technology company and that is what we do; we create
applications for mobile phones.”
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