[8-27-07 – Satellite News] Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co. believes new initiatives based on the company’s compact satellite modem will help generate more revenues and lead to a number of new applications that will reduce the company’s dependence on mobile handheld services for the majority of its revenue, the company’s CEO said.

The idea is “to capitalize on all of our system capabilities and create leverage by continuing to diversify and innovate new products and solutions that work on Thuraya system,” Yousuf Al Sayed, Thuraya’s CEO told Satellite News. “ThurayaModule, for instance, has been designed to provide the application developers and system integrators community as well as equipment manufacturers, which are a key market in the telecom industry, with ample opportunities to develop their own customized products [and]  solutions using Thuraya’s regional network.”

The ThurayaModule already is being used in tracking and surveillance prototypes but also has potential to be widely adopted for rural telephony, transportation, fixed/industrial assets, military assets and marine applications, Al Sayed said. Some new ThurayaModule applications likely will debut before the end of the year, with a greater variety becoming available in 2008, he said.

“The module plays a pivotal role in Thuraya’s overall business strategy,” Al Sayed said. “It opens up a world of opportunities to develop various products/solutions that work on the Thuraya network. This is so significant for the following objectives: It creates new network usage and consequently additional revenues; it substantially widens Thuraya’s scope of commercial services; it will gradually minimize Thuraya’s main reliance on mobile handheld as core service for long-term sustainable growth and builds a broader base for the company’s presence in the various telecom and technology markets.”

Thuraya is working with several technology partners to develop new applications using the ThurayaModule, which supports voice, data, messaging and location services.

“Thuraya is providing all the necessary support in terms of testing their working prototypes, offering market insights by keeping in touch with the distribution channels, and monitoring their progress on a regular basis to ensure the development is accomplished in the least time possible,” Al Sayed said. A majority of the developers who are working on the development of ThurayaModule embedded products are working on tracking solutions, he said.

“2007 is the year for developing and testing these new products and solutions that integrate ThurayaModule,” Al Sayed said. “Next year, Thuraya expects to see several of the active developers launch these specialized products to the market. Thuraya may not benefit substantially from the sales of the module units for it is a low-cost and low-margin product. However, the usage build-up of the module once sold to several major clients will drive our network usage and revenues, and this is expected to be realized towards the end of next year.”