1st Touch Release

1st Touch and OpenSpan Partnership Eliminates Restrictive Mobile Integration Practices for Local Authority Organisations and Social-Housing Providers

A partnership between leading, mobile technology group 1st Touch (www.1sttouch.com) and user process improvement software company OpenSpan (www.openspan.com) eliminates the restrictive practices inhibiting local authority organisations, such as social-housing providers, from deploying mobile technology to field-based staff.

1st Touch has developed successful integrations with many back-office systems used in local authority organisations, housing associations and ALMOs (arms length management organisations). In their opinion, there is widespread concern that some users are constrained in their ability to choose the right mobile solution. Either they face significant integration fees from their back-office system vendor or are tied in to unacceptable proprietary systems. This limits their ability to realise the significantly lower operational costs that mobile technology offers, in areas such as housing management, service provision, supporting people, surveying, inspection and utilities.

By identifying underlying application objects and utilizing the latest visual programming techniques, OpenSpan's proven technology overcomes these problems by capturing data directly from multiple back-office systems for use in 1st Touch mobile solutions. This eliminates any restrictive constraints on integration and enables users to replicate, build and administer PDA based applications easily.

1st Touch mobile technology can bring significant efficiencies and productivity increases to any application involving remote, mobile or field-based operations. The software manages, supports and controls all aspects of mobile operatives' activities. The resilient but flexible system enables easy, programming-free, user-customisable PDA based solutions to be created and is designed to simplify handheld form design and data capture. Any type of electronic form can be generated without the need for Business Process Mapping.

As OpenSpan's graphical user interface complements the unparalleled usability of 1st Touch technology, mobile applications can be delivered rapidly to the field and can be easily developed over time as needs change. As implementation speeds allow applications to be generated in a fraction of the time taken by traditional integration methods, any potential cost savings and efficiencies occur much sooner than would otherwise be possible.

Robert Dent CEO of 1st Touch is keen to stress the significant benefits for user organisations, commenting, "As part of the 1st Touch solution, OpenSpan's seamless integration abilities allow users to realise the full ROI benefits of existing back-office investments far more quickly. This is because they can now by-pass the silo-like limitations of bespoke integrations or worse, having their choice of mobile solution dictated to them. As OpenSpan tears down the walls between applications, local authorities and social-housing providers, are now able to move forward. No other approach offers them this level of freedom."

"We are naturally delighted, therefore, to announce the partnership with OpenSpan, a company recognised globally for its success in financial services, telecommunications, outsourced call centres and other industries. It is only right that this list should now include the local authority and social-housing markets."

Eric Musser, CEO of OpenSpan welcomed Dent's comments adding, "A number of technology vendors are still clinging to the outmoded concept of trying to lock their customers into their solutions. In these times of budget austerity, we are very pleased that our collaboration with 1st Touch is freeing up local authority organisations and social-housing providers to choose the best mobile solutions for their needs and budget."

Ends

About 1st Touch (www.1sttouch.com)

1st Touch, based in Southampton UK, has enabled dozens of field workforce-based organisations to embrace new mobile technologies and so achieve significant savings, greater productivity and more cost-effective use of resources.

1st Touch Mobile delivers clear and unique benefits:

• Reduced costs to organisations because airtime is minimised and the system is always available - with or without airtime.
• Flexibility through simple customer control over forms creation and amendment.
• Integration to multiple back office and other enterprise software applications, so that data is entered only once.

With its widely acclaimed mobile technology, 1st Touch has a clear focus on the Social Housing and Local Government markets. Many social housing providers and local authorities, at large, now benefit from the fast and tangible, best of breed benefits that 1st Touch mobile technology delivers to the enterprise.

To date, over 50% of the social housing market, which has deployed mobile technology, has chosen to implement 1st Touch. In local government, 1st Touch has already been adopted for a wide range of mobile workforce uses. Ready to use applications for local authority organisations include: Public Buildings, Highways/Street Services, Environmental/Waste Management, Revenues and Benefits, together with Planning Control and Trading Standards.

See archived press releases from OpenSpan below.

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