No category captures the potential and the aspirations of Singapore's indigenous infocomm industry as much as the National Infocomm Award's Most Innovative Infocomm Product/Service accolade. As nominations open for this year's Awards, three past winners talk about their post-Award journeys.

Activate Interactive (2006 winner)

Mr Wou: The award has helped us gain the trust of our overseas partners.

Recent breakthroughs
Games developer Activate Interactive ( www.activate.com.sg ) has continued to break new ground since winning the NIA in 2006. Last year, it was appointed by China Unicom to be its mobile games platform developer and master content provider in China, reaching out to its more than 100 million subscribers directly.

It also developed a multiplayer online community for Levis, which was a hit in Hong Kong and China, developed and launched online games for MTV in six Asian countries, launched a Windows Live game for Microsoft in five Asian countries and clinched the contract to develop PC and mobile games for LTA Singapore.

Activate also successfully launched its own Azurex War mobile multiplayer game in China, attracting more than 2,000 new players each day. In addition, it has rolled out its PC-mobile community game MigoCity globally, in both English and Chinese versions.

Going forward
Going forward, Activate will be focusing on expanding its markets, especially in Asia, said its Chief Executive Officer Mr Leslie Wou. "Besides developing games internally, we are also publishing more games from content provider partners globally," he said.

A few words on the National Infocomm Awards
According to Mr Wou, winning the NIA in 2006 has really helped the company to raise its profile both locally and internationally. "The national-level award has helped us gain the trust of our overseas partners such as China Unicom and Disney Mobile," he said. "The publicity has also created a lot of sales leads and opportunities for us. IDA has even invited us to showcase our products in their CommunicAsia booth, which was a beneficial marketing move."

e-Cop (2004 winner)

Mr Lim: We will continue to stay ahead of the curve in technology development and innovation.

Recent breakthroughs
Since winning the National Infocomm Award in 2004, e-Cop ( www.e-cop.net ) has seen aggressive growth and expansion in the region. In the process, the company has evolved from a pure-play managed security monitoring company to a multi-dimensional managed risk and info-security services provider.

"We established multiple Security Operations Centres (SOC) for government, financial institutions, and telecommunications companies in the region, and successfully commissioned the Singapore government's Cyber Watch Centre," said Managing Director and Regional Vice President Mr Lim Kok Keng.

Overseas, e-Cop built the Security Monitoring Centre for the Ministry of Communications of Brunei Darussalam; opened a new office in Beijing to handle the expanding business operations in China, and deployed its industry-leading security management solution CESM for the SOC of Mumbai-based Allied Digital, a leading system integrator and IT infrastructure management services provider in India. This led to the setting up of e-Cop's India office complete with a Global Resource Centre in Mumbai.

The company also expanded its presence to Thailand and established a new office complete with a full-fledged Global Command Centre in Bangkok.

Going forward
"In terms of growth strategy, we are expanding the breadth and depth of e-Cop's services portfolio and will continue to stay ahead of the curve in technology development and innovation," said Mr Lim.

A few words on the National Infocomm Awards
For e-Cop, winning the NIA in 2004 helped enhance its visibility in the local Singapore market and also regionally, said Mr Lim. "It cemented our credibility as the trusted partner for managed risk and information security services to enterprises and governments in the region."

"The award is definitely a big help to the local enterprises," he added. "It is a testament of full support by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and Singapore infocomm Technology Federation to local initiatives and it helps by giving the winner broader market exposure."

muvee Technologies (2002 winner)

Mr Swee: We have grown from an eight-person team to over 80-strong.

Recent breakthroughs
muvee Technologies ( www.muvee.com ), a pioneer in instant home movies, has come a long way since its flagship PC product, muvee autoProducer, won the NIA in April 2002. The company now ships 50 million copies of muvee autoProducer together with its partners' products. These include Sony, Nikon and Olympus cameras, as well as all HP notebooks and desktops. It is also sold in over 13 languages in retail stores in Japan, the United States and Europe. Muvee's core technology, which supports 42 languages, is also embedded in millions of Nokia and LG camera phones.

Going forward
"We have grown from an eight-person team when we won the award, to over 80-strong, made up of a bunch of quirky people from 18 countries," said muvee's founder and Chief Executive Officer Mr Terence Swee. "We will start our US office next quarter and expect to beef up marketing, sales and channel development whilst we continue to grow the Singapore team where it makes sense."

Muvee's vision is to own the entire Capture-Create-Share-Consume continuum for personal media, said Mr Swee. "In the last few years we have put in place most of those pieces and are already pioneers and leaders in some of them. We will put in the final pieces this year and grow our user base aggressively."

A few words on the National Infocomm Awards
For muvee, winning the NIA helped the company to gain credibility on the local stage, said Mr Swee. "It also gave us confidence in knowing that our product is ready to take on the world."