MEF Executive Questionaire #20: Michael Neidhoefer, Netbiscuits

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The Twentieth in the series is from Michael Neidhoefer, CEO of Netbiscuits.

1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation

Netbiscuits is the world’s leading cloud software service for cross-platform development, operation and management of mobile sites and apps. The company serves the mobile Internet programs for premium online and media companies such as eBay, Universal Music, MTV Networks, Time Inc. and Axel Springer, as well as leading agencies such as Sapient, Publicis, Razorfish and Ogilvy. Globally, Netbiscuits processes more than 3.5 billion mobile page deliveries for its customers each month. As its CEO and co-founder I am responsible for the sales, marketing and product strategy of Netbiscuits.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses
Netbiscuits provides a cloud software service for development and publishing of cross-platform mobile websites & apps. Our software service provides flexibility on demand, industry-leading uptime and availability, built-in disaster recovery and access to our global network of datacenters. Our customers get continuous innovation in mobile product features and capabilities, all delivered via the mobile cloud.

Netbiscuits basically offers two methods for the successful design, development and deployment of mobile solutions on our mobile cloud software service: Customers can create and manage Netbiscuits-enabled mobile websites in-house, or use Netbiscuits and their partners to facilitate mobile website and app production. We generate revenues from providing our platform to our customers as well as from bringing them professional services to develop their mobile solution.

We believe that it is crucial to enable our customers to use our platform without our interference which is why our enablement methodology includes document templates and processes to help project teams focus on the key tactical and strategic areas to maximize returns on your online investments and minimize the business risk. The methodology supports the rapid deployment of a mobile solution that meets the customer’s business and financial requirements. This is aligned with their online strategy, and is flexible enough to address future functionality or integration requirements.

We charge our customers monthly SaaS (software as a service) subscription fees for traffic running through our platform as well as customization and support services.

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
We have started off the company 10 years ago amidst the burst of the Internet bubble and the very early stages of mobile. Today, we are proud to stand solidly on three continents with a truly global customer base. Some of the world’s largest content owners are our customers and continue to grow their online business with us. We have been listed in Gartner Magic Quadrant as one of the leaders in Mobile Consumer Application Platforms amongst Google, Apple and many others.

We are on a strong growth path and will continue to work on our vision to become the mobile layer to the worldwide web:

Some facts:
- 400+ Clients
- 50+ partners
- 3.5 billion mobile page deliveries / month (doubling traffic every year)
- 70 million mobile video deliveries / month
- 5000 developers using our platform

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
- Making constant browser-based experience and touch-optimization available
- Making integration of rich features into mobile websites easier
- Working on standards for Mobile Advertising and Commerce
- Improving transparency in mobile device usage (LongTail - ShortTail)

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
See how our platform traffic doubled within one year and, personally, the birth of my baby girl.

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?

My car? No...
My mobile phone and lately - my iPad.

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
iPhone and iPad, Laptop.

8. What’s your favourite application?
Amazon Kindle to read my books on any device.

9. What’s your ringtone?
Mars Attacks.

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
Fierce, MocoNews, MobileMarketer, TechCrunch.

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
How to enable frictionless payment on mobile browsable applications.

12. Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?
MEF is an exceptional industry group with an exceptional corporate member base all equipped with a huge set of experience in the mobile sphere and Netbiscuits is happy to be part of it.