Morse taps mobiles

Ebusiness integrator Morse has expanded its expertise to include mobile technology.

Ebusiness integrator Morse has expanded its expertise to include mobile technology.

At Mobile Commerce World 2000 last week, Morse demonstrated a new internet template portal for Net-based retailers to add to their own branding, front-end customisation and services.

Mark Byatt, marketing director at Morse, said: "The portal showcases our understanding of mobile technology. Initially, we did it to train our developers in the latest wireless technology, now we may offer it as a commercial product."

While the software is contributed by the retailer, the computing is done on Morse's hardware. The portal was developed in partnership with vendor Sun.

"We are Sun's largest partner in Europe," said Byatt. "Sun is very interested in our wireless skills and it helped procure the server technology and software we used.

"We are expecting to work in partnership with a lot of organisations that want to offer this to customers, whether or not they are IT firms. The market is resource-constricted. There are more opportunities than there are people with skills."

Meanwhile, Sun is expanding its internet auction offers. Earlier this year, the vendor offered a few items at online auctions including eBay and QXL to increase its SME market share. Now Sun is putting its latest high-end workstation on eBay.com.

Sun unveiled the Sun Blade 1000, with 750Mhz and 900Mhz versions, last week. A special 600Mhz version will be auctioned on eBay. John Shoemaker, executive vice-president of the system products group at Sun, said: "The 600Mhz is a slow product and probably wouldn't have sold.

"We find that SMEs which normally would not purchase are bidding. It could be a new channel for us."