New innovators

A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Standing up for the perfect sound

ARDAN AUDIO:BRENT SMITH has a passion for sound. A musician and audio engineer with more than 35 years experience in all aspects of the sound business, he founded Ardán Audio in 2009 to develop products for the high end of the home and professional audio markets.

For those who don’t demand much from their sound system, speaker stands are unlikely to loom large on their horizon. But for dyed-in-the-wool audiophiles, speaker stands can come between them and their sleep. Brent Smith hopes that his company’s first product, the Elevation Pro speaker stand, will ensure they get a good night’s rest.

“I’ve spent a lifetime looking for the perfect stand and never found it,” Smith says. “There are currently none that tilt, rotate and provide mechanical vibration isolation. There are a few foam acoustic isolating pads but they have no tilt and rotate capability, which are critical to the quality of the sound heard out front. This product has taken two years of intense design and development to bring to the market.”

Smith estimates that there are about 10 million buyers of top-end audio products worldwide and he would like Ardán to capture about one per cent of this market. The Elevation Pro will sell at $1,499 (€1,048) in the US. Prices for other markets have yet to be agreed.

“We think it’s virtually impossible to establish a quality brand starting from a low-cost mass product. Our strategy is to start with the Pro product and bring out a lower-cost version and other products over the coming two years. We have 22 products on the roadmap – not all to do with speaker stands, but all to do with better audio quality.”

Ardán sees itself as a quality audio design company, not a manufacturer. It will license manufacturers worldwide to produce its designs and sell through distributors. The first versions of the Elevation Pro are being made in Italy.

Smith says Ardán’s products are fully protected by patent and that, while it is difficult to prevent people copying an idea if they are intent on doing so, international law tends to back the patent holder if push comes to shove.

“We think the focus should be on building our sales and our brand and ultimately this will protect us,” he says.

Digital card puts the heat on stamps 

ENTERPRISE IT:SAVINGS STAMPS have always been a handy way for savers to put money aside for future expenses. But stamps are costly to administer, the paper booklets can become tatty and if someone loses their card it's the equivalent of losing that amount in cash.

Two years ago Dublin-based company, Enterprise IT, launched a digital alternative to paper stamps and its wallet-sized plastic card is in use by 25 credit unions around the country. Now the company plans to launch a self-service kiosk in eight weeks’ time.

“We’d been providing IT services to credit unions for a number of years and knew there were issues with paper stamps,” says the company’s sales and development manager, Eoin O’Sullivan. “There is a big culture of savings stamps in credit unions so we decided to try to overcome the problems and spent two years developing the Visual Savings Card.

The paperless and tamperproof system uses heat-sensitive dyes embedded in a transparent layer which change colour when heated to a specific temperature. When a customer buys a savings stamp or records points their card is visually updated to reflect the new balance.

“Being able to show the current balance is one of the system’s unique points,” says O’Sullivan. “The information is also written to a magnetic stripe on the card. If someone loses their card they are simply issued with a new one so the card is safer than a paper system. It’s also a greener option.”

The cost of the self-service kiosk is €10,000 but O’Sullivan says retailers will quickly get payback on their investment as it will save them time and money. Some issuers may charge them for the cards. The cost in credit unions is about €3 but O’Sullivan says customers see it as cheap insurance given their savings are protected if the card gets lost.

Customer data goes into the cloud

VIZI:KNOW YOUR customer is the clarion call of management gurus everywhere. But that's easier said than done in a world where customer data is being constantly collected in many different forms.

There are plenty of systems to help analyse the data collected and as it’s a multibillion-dollar industry, blue-chip companies dominate the sector.

However, about a third of the market is open to smaller software companies that are targeting specific niches within the field.

Aiming to join them is Irish start-up Vizi. It has developed an easy-to-use online customer data intelligence platform aimed at anyone within an organisation trying to make sense of customer-related information. Typical users would be sales and marketing professionals.

Vizi chose this niche because it had identified shortcomings in existing products including cost and complexity. Data was not well presented visually, systems offered limited interactivity and it took statistical expertise to analyse results.

In short, systems were focused more towards data analysts than business users.

To crack these issues, a collaboration was established between NDRC (National Digital Research Centre), Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire, University College Dublin and online communications specialists Twelve Horses.

The team spent two years and about €1.5 million developing its cloud-based solution which is currently on trial with a number of potential buyers.

The first paying customers are expected to sign on the dotted line shortly.

“Within this team we had access to the latest academic research in data visualisation, web design and usability and the product has been tested in real-life situations all along the way,” says Majella Murphy, commercial development leader at NDRC. “Traditionally companies buying such systems faced big upfront costs.

“Vizi requires low upfront investment with immediate set-up and online delivery. Our business model is software as a service and a small company can access the system for as little as €99. Larger companies pay around €4,000 for multiple users and more data.”

Vizi will have to muscle its way into a crowded market but Murphy says its route to market is through Twelve Horses, which already has a well-established customer base in Europe.

“This, coupled with our unique pricing model, makes Vizi very accessible to commercial and public sector customers of all sizes,” she says.

Surgical supports that don't leave you sore

VASCOCARE MEDICAL:GEL PADS AND gel cushions are the most common way of relieving pressure on vulnerable areas of the body during surgery or prolonged periods of sitting or lying. But gel distributes pressure unevenly and can leak, posing a hygiene risk.

Carlow-based company VascoCare Medical has come up with an alternative that uses visco-elastic foam to hold patients in natural postures. This allows body pressure to be evenly distributed and prevents sores occurring.

“One in four people gets pressure sores on the operating table and 60,000 in the US die from pressure-sore related problems each year,” says product designer Michael Lawler, who set up VascoCare Medical with Noel Muldowney in 2008. “It is estimated that pressure sores cost US health authorities $1 billion a year, while around 4 per cent of the UK health budget is spent on the aftercare of pressure sores. It’s a big cost for healthcare providers everywhere, so the market potential is huge.”

VascoCare Medical has received development assistance from Carlow IT and its first product, which supports the head in a supine position, was launched in January. It will be sold to medical facilities performing surgery. By the end of the year there will be a suite of VascoCare products designed to support the body in other positions with applications in broader medical settings.

The product has been tested at seven Irish hospitals and is on sale in Germany and Scotland with eight additional markets coming on stream soon. It is made in Germany but Lawler wants to manufacture in Ireland when volumes allow. The design and technology behind the device have taken three years to perfect. “Our revolutionary ergonomic design brings patient positioning into the 21st century and there is nothing else like it on the market,” Lawler says. “Our product is significantly better than current products in a number of key ways: it is light, durable, easy to clean and will not burst. Gel rings costs around $150 and can burst several times a year.” But convincing health authorities will be the big challenge; it costs 50 per cent more than existing products.