Tomizone 7 years on

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SteveC

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#124611 14-Jul-2013 10:34

Who is using Tomizone out there?

Steve Simms - Executive Director - is still happily answering questions, and will no doubt find this one, just as he was at the launch in 2006.
They are either successful or have a pretty awesome set of financial mirrors to still be here seven years or so later, winning awards, and some pretty impressive 'Australasia' size claims, but I can't find any discussion about the service. Not here at Geekzone, in Tomizone's 'community' or anywhere. I emailed the help desk on Thursday - the problem fixed itself, but I never get a reply. The Tomizone 'news' shows an infinite increase in content for 2013 (2 articles vs none in 2012, 1 in 2011).

I'm not wanting to knock Tomizone, and have recommended it to a client, however, I'd feel better if there was more discussion going on around the service.

webwat

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#855204 14-Jul-2013 12:16

Not really LAN though is it....

Time to find a new industry!

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SteveC

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#855209 14-Jul-2013 12:34

webwat: Not really LAN though is it....

I pondered that point for a while before posting here. It does come under the "... ethernet/Wifi/routers ..." subheading! Perhaps a better category would be Network Services?
If no one else contributes to the discussion, then it really doesn't matter! :-)

nickb800

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#855252 14-Jul-2013 13:48

Not much to add here, but they power the customer Wifi at my local Paknsave - with a few decent corporate clients like foodstuff they could be trucking along quite well

NonprayingMantis

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#855253 14-Jul-2013 13:56

I see their hotspots around quite a bit, but one has to wonder with Telecom rolling out shedloads of free hotspots whether there remains a business case for commercial wifi of this sort

sbiddle

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#855267 14-Jul-2013 13:59

NonprayingMantis: I see their hotspots around quite a bit, but one has to wonder with Telecom rolling out shedloads of free hotspots whether there remains a business case for commercial wifi of this sort

Their model is all around providing the hotspot solution, with different customers having different requirements in terms of billing/usage.

Much of their public transport connectivity (Airport Flyer, Sydney Ferries for example) is free.

NonprayingMantis

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#855269 14-Jul-2013 14:04

sbiddle:
NonprayingMantis: I see their hotspots around quite a bit, but one has to wonder with Telecom rolling out shedloads of free hotspots whether there remains a business case for commercial wifi of this sort

Their model is all around providing the hotspot solution, with different customers having different requirements in terms of billing/usage.

Much of their public transport connectivity (Airport Flyer, Sydney Ferries for example) is free.

I guess what I mean is if the telecom rollout continues, then businesses (cafes, bars, auckland transport etc) will see little need to pay Tomizone for wifi, because their customers won't demand it, because they already get it from Telecom.

cyril7

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#855275 14-Jul-2013 14:28

Yep other free services and the explosion of the smartphone with decent data plans means much of their market base has disappeared, another example of destructive market forces.

Cyril

SteveC

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#855392 14-Jul-2013 17:37

Thanks for your thoughts everyone - I think I agree with everyone, except one minor linguistic cyril7 - I would use the term disruptive rather than destructive ... that market is still there, but turned on its head somewhat.
Last time I looked, there Telecom were not setting up in Wellington ... but I might have missed something. Benefit of Tomizone for us is very easy and cheap setup.
As far as I can tell, big resistance to free public wifi is from businesses who were (and some will continue to - for a while yet) make money, or differentiate their business, by provision of public wifi.
Big Tomizone customers would be Starbucks and Esquire, with the recently announced Auckland metro. I suspect their business is focusing very much on the big customers - hence the lack of information for little people ... but the system does seem to work well for anyone.
I have seen references to Tomizone running on MikroTik and Ubiquity APs. On their website Tomizone only offers D-Link, and one model each from Linksys and Belkin (who are now one company).
Tomizone claim 827 hotspots in New Zealand! http://www.tomizone.com/wifi_users/locate

cyril7

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#855399 14-Jul-2013 17:45

I think you will find that the baseline D-link routers failed to provide reliable service for larger venues, hence they concentrate on more corporate setups with Mikrotik routers that they supply. Thing is its not hard to setup Mikrotiks to do managed hotspots and the owner keep all the $.

Cyril

stevenewzealand

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#855815 15-Jul-2013 13:10

It's been a great 7 years for Tomizone and I'm pleased you guys are discussing it. Toward the end of last year, the company embarked on an expansion strategy after Phillip and I acquired the company shares fully from Sir Stephen Tindall. We've been profitable for over two years now and have a great core team in Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane, Bangalore, Beijing and Nadi with over 88% of our revenue is from offshore operations.

In a nutshell;

a) We recently bought Jimojo & iRoom (based in Brisbane) and this is their third month of being part of the Tomizone family. This acquisition added 400 quality accommodation partners across Australia with a large concentration on the East Coast. We are continuing our search for other business which fit our investment and expansion criteria.

b) We have been focussing effort on the blue chip style clients in the Telco, Transport, Accommodation, Retail and Metro segments. For instance, Sydney Airport in the transport sector is augmented with Cairns, Nadi, Rotorua, Christchurch, Dunedin and one other yet-to-be-named airport - this business is excellent as they need decent managed Wi-Fi Solutions to really give the passengers a quality systems and service.

c) Our Tomizone Service Platform (AKA LightSwitch) has really got itself into a brilliant scalable position and now our API has given us more flexibility to white-label our platform for other operators who want to kick off a Wi-Fi network with a top-grade system that is agnostic to vendor hardware. We already have a few Telco's using our white-labelled solution which means that they are able to get up and running quickly with a solid system back end - confidentiality precludes us from announcing who they are at this stage.

d) Our D-Link relationship certainly put us on the world stage however the company outgrew the "firmware" model and now have our own range of gateways (known as Concierge, Chauffeur and Concessionaire) and are based on the MikroTik RouterboardOS. These support any vendor solution (for instance, Sydney Airport and Foodstuffs South Island run Cisco with our Concierge providing the public access grunt).

e) We have every option of free Wi-Fi access covered. Using our survey or advertising engine, it means that venues can offer sustainable and safe Free Wi-Fi services - we've been doing this since 2006 when we got Esquires Coffee on board. There are so many ways to do free now on Wi-Fi and we've developed it.

f) We applaud the recent Telecom NZ deployment of phone box Wi-Fi. It's good to see them expand the market in New Zealand again.

So where now? We know the race for more Free Wi-Fi services is the trend around the world. We are well sorted for this managed type of services and more of the Vendors are looking at Managed Service Providers to add value to their network sales. We'll continue to expand in the core countries and we've got a few other things up our sleeve which will continue to show that we are well, profitable, and heading in the right direction.

We've only just started :)

Steve Simms - CEO - Tomizone.

ajobbins

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#855829 15-Jul-2013 13:30

stevenewzealand: We've only just started :)

Good to hear! Let me know if you're ever looking for a Project Manager/Awesome guy in Sydney or Melbourne (or further abroad).

Twitter: ajobbins

stevenewzealand

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#858226 17-Jul-2013 17:59

Let me know if you're ever looking for a Project Manager/Awesome guy in Sydney or Melbourne (or further abroad).

Indeed there are openings shortly for Service Delviery Manager in Auckland right now - Sydney and Brisbane are full at the moment and we don't have an office in Melbourne. We've got a swath of openings soon - email "careers AT tomizone DOT com"