Norwood Systems adds high-performance messaging application to Corona product suite

Software developer and cybersecurity company Norwood Systems (ASX: NOR) has released World Message 2.0, a high-performance SMS and instant messaging app, to be added into its product suite of tools made available to both consumers and businesses.

Norwood’s unique service offering Corona delivers Over the Top (OTT) connectivity, knowledge and intelligence services.

Broadly speaking, its products and services are targeted at a broad spectrum of prospective customers from individuals through to large enterprises and government agencies.

According to Norwood, World Message 2.0 represents a major advance for the highly-acclaimed World Message platform and comes hot on the heels of its World Wi-Fi app launch.

World Message 2.0 addresses key enterprise requirements and adds network resilience and scalability capabilities, including features such as enterprise-grade encryption and state-of-the-art back-end server scalability.

Norwood says that its rich feature-set can combine to deliver peace of mind and “unparalleled reliability for network administrators and users alike.”

As a key consideration, Norwood reports that it has ensured a strong level of backwards compatibility with previous versions of the Apple iPhone. World Message now operates on both iOS 10 and iOS 11 including iPhone 5’s which were originally launched in 2012. Overall, Norwood’s apps work on around 90% of current iPhones.

By releasing World Message 2.0, Norwood is effectively supplementing its virtual mobile services platform called Corona. Norwood says the platform is being supported in 19 countries globally and has registered in excess of 6 million users to date since launching in 2014.

As a concept, Corona enables functionality that’s been dubbed as ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) which effectively means users can switch handsets seamlessly without compromising any data or personal user settings.

The enterprise mobility solution keeps work calls and messages completely separate from personal calls and messages, even on a single mobile handset, according to Norwood.

Other service features made possible by Norwood’s Corona suite is virtual businesses and even virtual offices.

For personal or small business use, users can deploy World Message and World Phone to create a low-cost second virtual business identity with a separate mobile number.

Furthermore, Norwood says that employee communications using World Phone/World Message and Corona can be recorded and logged with leading CRM platforms and leading archival platforms for highly regulated industries, such as the financial sector.

This development could be a key commercial driver for Norwood given its recently established relationship with Oracle, a computing juggernaut serving corporate customers across the US.

“We have a number of significant prospective enterprise clients that have specifically been asking us for enterprise-grade features such as security, scalability and resilience, which we are very happy now to tick off as standard enterprise features in this new version of World Message and its associated super-powerful back-end server platform.”

“We are really looking forward to how these prospective enterprise clients respond to our full suite of updated, beautiful and functional virtual mobile Apps,” said Paul Ostergaard, CEO and Founder of Norwood Systems.

“There are very few companies around the world that have the capabilities to deliver this calibre of Over the Top SMS messaging software. This is without question a world-class messaging platform that, with its associated Corona CRM and Corona Compliance capabilities, is one step ahead of the competition,” Mr Ostergaard added.

Mr Ostergaard also said that Norwood also plans on adding “key machine learning-based intelligence capabilities into the World Message platform, to move a full two steps ahead of the competition.”

Working with Oracle

Potentially a key revenue driver in years to come, Norwood has established a relationship with Oracle, a prominent US-based company serving thousands of corporate clients.

At the end of last year, Norwood was invited by Oracle to participate in a two-day competitive “stack ranking” exercise, comprising face-to-face presentations in Oracle’s New York City offices.

After fielding questions from Oracle’s senior executives, Norwood was selected from a group of more than a dozen hopefuls, as one of the firms that Oracle has earmarked for “onboarding” and integrating into its go-to-market sales efforts.

The two firms plan to target the US North East financial services sector, which includes the major Wall Street firms and global banks headquartered in New York.

Despite being the only overseas participant in Oracle’s confab, Norwood’s Corona API’s will be integrated into Oracle’s open banking API ecosystem “to allow Oracle’s financial services clients to integrate Norwood’s Corona services into their IT systems.”

Furthermore, Norwood’s tie-up with Oracle could potentially lead to a further industry collaboration after Oracle’s introduction of complementary value-added technology partners “triggered an ongoing partnering discussion,” according to Norwood.