Innovative Technology / Hampex With the slogan, "Mobile solutions for your future", Hampex Ltd. (www.hampex.com/ www.stckorea. com) is drawing attention in IT circles by cutting a conspicuous figure in terms of technology power, something of a rarity for smaller companies. In fact, this company's R&D manpower is impressive, with 238 workers involved in R&D out of a total workforce of 256 persons. CEO Choi Kyoung-Sub, a professionally certified engineer, succinctly described what Hampex is all about in a special interview with The Korea IT Times: "Hampex is a wireless mobile communication solution company offering the highest competitiveness in terms of mobile contents, mobile phones, education/consulting and solutions." Possessing diverse technology First as to mobile phone development business, Hampex is assessed to possess superior R&D human power and next-generation communication technology plus offering development service to be able to meet customer needs. Accordingly, the firm's major technology is tremendously diverse in mobile phone development business. For instance, GSM/GPRS SW holds technologies such as Base Porting, Device Driver Dev., Sim, Datacall Dev, Protocol Dev, Application Dev. and UI customization. Symbian SW also holds Base & Platform Porting, Phone Interface Dev., multimedia porting, app. customization, UI design, and integration technologies etc. OMAP field shows technologies like OS base porting, S60 porting & integration, Device Driver Dev., telephone module development, and Multimedia Dev. Choi added that the company's hardware part also has diverse technologies such as AP Design & Dev. Device Interface Dev, I/O Interface Dev. phone function, power management, verification & optimization, and volume production & field-test. Besides, testing field too possesses integration test, functional test, basic acceptance, field type approval, binary compatibility, regression test, and stress test technologies etc. Second, this company's solution development business includes Symbian/S60 solution, Platform solution, DMB receiver (HDMB-100/200), RFID reader module (HR900M), image awareness solution, Bluetooth solution, UWB module, FOTA (Firmware over the air) solution and so forth, according to Choi. Thirdly, Hampex's contents business concerns theme UI design such as GUI theme for Symbian smartphone and Hampex GUI theme site to be slated to opened in the second half of 2006. Fourthly, Hampex has two major server based solutions. One is PictureX, which is one of the most powerful mobile marketing tools. PictureX uses an object recognition device to recognize the promotional 2D images in offline media (magazines, newspapers, street advertisements, posters, brochures and etc). Those images can be connected to the wireless Internet contents, service and promotion via PictureX. The other is Smart UI which is a market proven solution for maximizing user experience at mobile phone's IDLE SCREEN. Smart UI occupies the idle screen of a user's mobile phone and deliver customized service menu from Contents Providers according to user's choice. Each Contents Providers can have their own service channel to bridge their service directly to user's IDLE SCREEN. In conjunction with education consulting business as well, Hampex is operating education service course, which can be in the vanguard of next-generation mobile communication field. Its curriculum consists of three courses such as SymbianOS, Nokia S60 platform, and TI OMAP. Hampex operates the company's Bundang PC training room for 20 workers in concert with Symbian authorized STP, Nokia authorized NCTC, and TI OMAP Training Center. As for the education field, Symbian course is composed of Symbian OS Essentials course (a primary grade course), Application Engine Development Course & Application User Interface Development Course (an intermediate grade course), and Symbian Internal Course (Base porting). Nokia Course consists of Nokia S60 C++ Development Introduction (an intermediate grade course) and Nokia J2ME (high-grade course). TI OMAP course, slated at the second half of 2006, is TI OMAP 1510, 1610, 1710, & OMAP2 course as a course for specialist. Many business partners & customer relations Illustrations of Hampex's technology power can be found in the company's business partners as well as customers, Choi explained. In terms of business partner with Symbian, Hampex forms Symbian Platinum partner as well as Symbian training partnership relationship. From Nokia side too, Hampex assumes several roles as Nokia S60-competence center and Nokia certified training center. Besides, the company is forming business connections with TI, Atmel, Bitfone and Kionix as TI OMAP technology center, Atmel design house, FOTA technology center and so on. Hampex's customers also compass large companies such as Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Texas Instruments, KTF, SK Telekom, LG Telecom and so forth. For example, Hampex is maintaining customer relation with Samsung Electronics in GPRS/Symbian Smartphone & Feature Phone development service. With KTF, Choi introduces that the company maintains customer relationship in mobile game & application development/ service and next generation UI platform consulting. Its customer relationship with SK Telecom includes Symbian Smartphone based network project and mobile game development/service. Further, Hampex is forming customer relationship with LG Telecom too in mobile network project & mobile game developments/service. In particular, Choi underlines Hampex's Symbian OS/ S60 License & Capabilities. Hampex capabilities for Symbian OS mean that Hampex is a Symbian Dev Kit Licensee, Hampex is a Symbian Platinum Partner, and Hampex is a Symbian Certified Training Partner. The company's status in relation to S60 shows that Hampex is a Nokia S60 competence center and Hampex is a Nokia S60 certified training partner. Symbian IDH (Independent Design House) and Nokia S60 Boutique are under way, Choi introduces, adding that Hampex's Symbian/ S60 technology power possesses Symbian OS/S60 based S60 terminal development capability, WIPI as well as all sorts of application materialization as well as transplanting ability, S60 Theme UI development ability. "The best result comes from fulfilling the very basic concept" Particularly, it is said that design is strong at Hampex. In connection with this, Choi underscores that Hampex design team consists of UI professional designers who have much practical experience in diverse fields like Mobile GUI, Application GUI and Producer User Interface. Based on the motto of 'The best result comes from fulfilling the very basic concept', Hampex design team seeks to be the best design partner possessing fresh ideas with endless efforts, he said. Possessing smartphone GUI design know-how based on many field experiences with S/W development team, Choi notes: "We provide the next generation GUI environment by analyzing the former GUI contents and enhance customer's product competitiveness not only by our graphic design but also by the sincere study for the look & feel and the function of the product". Furthermore, he said that we precede diverse test on the interface and develop our own prototype to achieve evolutional creativeness and based on this study, we analyze product target position & trend of target class and apply them to the GUI development.