Atlanta’s Mobility Industry Rising

By Rolf Versluis, CTO, Adcap Network Systems
The speed at which new technologies are being developed – tools and innovations that are transforming the way we communicate, do business and carry out our daily lives – can be described as nothing less than a global phenomenon.
For businesses in the technology industry, particularly the field of mobile technology, this transformational growth means we can bring better products and services to customers more rapidly. It also, in turn, ramps up the pace at which those companies can expand, improve how efficiently they get business done and propel forward their ability to develop better systems, tools and products.
It’s an effect that builds upon itself in the right environment. In order to get the most out of a potentially thriving hive of innovation activity, you need great location – an ecosystem where bright minds want to bring their best ideas and where great companies want to build their homes.
Right now, for the meteoric field of Mobility, that location and ecosystem is Atlanta.
The eagerness of Atlanta area organizations to put mobility technology to work has helped Adcap to succeed. Amongst our customers, it is a given that the use of mobile devices allows for better customer service, improved productivity, and increased sales. By leveraging the thriving metro Atlanta mobility ecosystem, Adcap has taken our well-honed wireless and data network business practice and turbo-charged it.
A solid leader in technology for decades, Atlanta has emerged as a global hub for Mobility, which has become one of the hottest, fastest-growing sectors of technology today.
Backed by a rich history of technology success and the industry’s biggest leaders, Atlanta’s mobility ecosystem includes unrivaled talent, world-class universities, and leading-edge activity from the industry’s top companies. Combine that with Atlanta’s reputation for Southern hospitality and low cost of doing business and you’ve got the place that creates mobility for the real world.
Over the last year, Atlanta’s Mobility companies – companies that happen to big some of the biggest technology leaders in the world, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, The Weather Channel, among others – have launched an initiative that pulls all of Atlanta’s best mobility assets and leaders together to form a cohesive strategy to make Atlanta the unrivaled global hub for mobility.
Through this initiative, led by the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s Mobility Task Force, Atlanta’s story is gaining eyes and its ecosystem is growing more powerful.
What is exciting is that these large and established organizations are putting mobile devices to work in all areas of their business, including sales, service, and manufacturing. They look to local businesses to help them in all these areas, and the Atlanta mobility ecosystem is delivering. They have seen noticeable improvements in their business, and want more. This attitude has spread to organizations of all sizes and types within the metro area, including manufacturers, education, and health-care. The demand for mobility solutions appears insatiable.
Consider the following facts:

• All told, Atlanta has 24,000 jobs in mobile app development, creating an economic impact at just over $1 billion.
• Georgia ranks fifth in “App Intensity” according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) which measures the ratio of app developer jobs against overall tech jobs in an area.
• In the last year alone, nine mobile startups were launched here, creating nearly 1,000 jobs for metro Atlanta
• One of the hottest mobile startups – AirWatch – calls Atlanta home along with top mobile service provider AT&T, mobile marketing leaders Coca-Cola and Home Depot, as well as some of the world’s largest mobile content providers like CNN, the Weather Channel and many others.
• Colleges like Georgia Tech, Emory University, and the University of Georgia turn out technology talent every year to go to work at Atlanta’s mobile technology companies.
• The city is poised to lead in mobile payments. 70 percent of all credit card transactions in the U.S. go through Atlanta
• Atlanta acts as a business magnet. It boasts the lowest cost of doing business among the top 10 largest metro areas in the U.S., and is the #1 city for minority entrepreneurs to set up shop.

Those stats and figures support the fact that, when it comes to great location, metro Atlanta has the critical mass of talent, leadership, innovation and development potential that will set a new standard for the advancement of this industry.
Simply put, Atlanta’s where it’s at for Mobility – and that has happened both organically and strategically. Arguably that’s how most of the best hubs for technology across the country – and globe- have risen from notable to revolutionary.

Rolf Versluis is a founder and the CTO of Adcap Network Systems. Rolf is an Electrical Engineer with 22 years experience in systems operations, design, deployment, and support.A USNA grad and former US Navy nuclear submarine officer, Rolf previously worked in the semiconductor industry as well as for Cisco Systems. He leads the technical practice at Adcap and is responsible for creating the architectures that Adcap engineers design, deploy and support.