Handmark� Pocket Express� Wins Mobile Village� Mobile Star Awards� in Seven Categories
Pocket Express Wins Two Golds, Three Silvers, one Bright Star; CEO August Grasis Wins Honorable Mention for Best Leader: Wireless Solutions Company
KANSAS CITY, MO — (31 October 2005) — Handmark®, a global leader in mobile media, today announced that it has won two Gold, three Silver, and one Bright Star Mobile Star Awards™ from MobileVillage®, the 10-year leader in market development and news services about mobile technology. The awards honor Pocket Express™ and the wireless industry leadership of August Grasis III, CEO of Handmark.
The fourth annual Mobile Star Awards aim to honor and promote the best companies, products, deployments, and leaders in mobile and wireless technology. Winners are chosen by subscribers to Go Mobile®, MobileVillage’s free online newsletter sent to technology executives, mobile users, buyers, IT managers, developers, and top tech journalists.
Handmark awards include:
• Personal Software: Productivity Tool for BlackBerry – Gold Star
• Personal Software: Productivity Tool for Java Mobile Edition (J2ME) – Gold Star
• Personal Software: Productivity Tool for Palm OS – Silver Star
• Personal Software: Productivity Tool for Windows Mobile – Silver Star
• Personal Software: Productivity Tool for Symbian Phones – Silver Star
• Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Utility – Bright Star
• Leader: Mobile Solutions Company – Honorable Mention (August Grasis, CEO, Handmark)
“The Mobile Star Awards program gets bigger every year,” said MobileVillage Editor Gary Thayer. “This year we saw over 100 entries in 60 categories, and nearly 800 people took the time to cast votes. The Mobile Star Awards are unique in that the judges are Go Mobile® readers – these people have a great knowledge of the industry and eager to tell the world which mobile products deserve recognition.”
“For the second year in a row, Handmark Pocket Express makes an impressive showing in the Mobile Star Awards,” said Douglas Edwards, Handmark cofounder and executive vice president. “This illustrates both the accelerating Pocket Express adoption rate and the positive effect that the Pocket Express experience is having on mobile user’s daily lives. And once again, the mobile space industry leadership of our CEO, August Grasis III is recognized.”
Handmark Pocket Express delivers news, weather, sports, stocks, directories, movies, maps, and more to wireless handsets. The personalized Pocket Express experience is faster than mobile web surfing by orders of magnitude, and the intuitive PageOne interface serves up content with a fraction of the clicks required by mobile web browsing.
August Grasis III is a 20-year software industry veteran who has been responsible for the development of over 30 commercial software programs at Handmark and elsewhere. His leadership is reflected in Pocket Express, a service which has received numerous accolades since its introduction in 2004.
A list of winners in each of this year’s award categories is posted at http://www.mobilevillage.com/awards.htm.
