When we started ZYB more than two years ago there were many obstacles to building an independent, direct-to-consumer brand in the mobile services sector. The mobile industry was known for its lack of standards, walled gardens, and closed attitude towards “outsiders” trying to offer new services directly to mobile users. Despite this, we’ve established an innovative brand, added sexiness to a boring space, and created a free, useful service for several hundred thousands mobile users. And we continue to strive to deliver the best solutions for real problems - we tend never to be satisfied!

The good news is that the mobile industry is now changing and in really positive ways. Operators and handset vendors are embracing the internet and independency as we have never seen before. And by opening their doors, they’re making it easier for smaller, innovative companies like ZYB to offer better mobile services for people. These are very exciting times and ZYB is right at the forefront of the rapid changes taking place in the internet-mobile space. This could not have been illustrated more clearly by the level of interest shown by the industry in what ZYB is doing at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February – i.e. Business Week rated ZYB one of the 10 most innovative mobile companies at the show.

The bad news though is that the change is happening too slowly. There is still too much friction in the industry and that friction is making it much harder for people to get the full benefit of their fancy new mobiles and from the data packages they’ve just subscribed to. Our dream is to make services for mobiles just as fluid and free as they are for any online web application. There is still some way to go - but everything is (finally) moving in the right direction. We’re continuing to work around the obstacles and vested interests, to create an even better mobile experience for people in the future