Mobile Distillery appoints VP for North America, opens first office in Asia and strengthens its expert team to support growing needs for mobile application production

Paris, France – 3 February 2009 – Mobile Distillery, the leading specialist in software solutions for mobile application production and testing services, today announced the appointment of Steve Haney, formerly of Tira Wireless, as Vice President of Mobile Distillery’s North American office, based in San Francisco. In a further demonstration of its expanding global presence, Mobile Distillery also announced it has opened a Singapore office with the appointment of Emilie Guldner as business development manager for the Asia Pacific region. Mobile Distillery made these appointments and internal promotions to strengthen its headquarter-based core expert team and support its growth strategy.

“These appointments and promotions are key to support new mobile market trends and related challenges for 2009. We already see strong demand from large corporations for collaborative frameworks for the creation of mobile applications; from operators which are looking for customised tools and services to help developers easily produce adapted content for their device portfolio and from integrators which need scalability and reliability to develop, port and test their mobile projects,” said Vincent Berge, Co-founder and CEO of Mobile Distillery.

Steve Haney joins Mobile Distillery to expand its presence in North America at a time when companies are looking for strong expertise for their “go mobile” initiatives. Since Mobile Distillery first entered the North American market in early 2008 a number of large customers in banking, distribution and IT engineering services have adopted Mobile Distillery’s mobile applications production platform and testing services. Previously VP of Marketing at mobile porting specialist Tira Wireless, Steve brings with him a wealth of industry knowledge to this new role.

“Steve is a fantastic addition to Mobile Distillery’s executive team. Not only does he bring experience and fresh ideas to the business, but he also understands the significance of the global challenges facing developers and companies launching mobile applications or associated services”, said Eric Lemaréchal, Co-founder and COO of Mobile Distillery. “Steve is an example of the in-depth mobile expertise that Mobile Distillery can offer to its customers around the world.”

Steve Haney is a veteran in the mobile industry. Before working at Tira Wireless, Steve was EVP of Sales and Marketing & Co-founder of FingerTwitch, Inc., a mobile content porting and technology firm which he sold in 2004. Prior to FingerTwitch, Steve was CEO and Co-founder of HandsOn Network, Inc., a venture-backed mobile content technology start-up, which he sold to Mforma in 2001. Before pursuing his career in the mobile industry, Steve held marketing and business development positions at many high profile Silicon Valley companies including Apple, Interval Research, Viacom Interactive and MicroProse.

In addition to the appointment of Steve Haney and Emilie Guldner, Mobile Distillery has announced a number of internal promotions and appointments:

Jean-Marc Rocchi joins Mobile Distillery as Business Development Manager focusing on the growing markets of mobile payment and authentification. Jean-Marc brings 17 years of experience in the telecoms industry and a global understanding of mobile technology, with a specific focus on SIM manufacturers, mobile network providers and software integrators.

François-Joseph Viallon has become Head of Operators Business Unit. François joined Mobile Distillery in 2005 as head of business development for Southern Europe. Prior to joining Mobile Distillery, he set up the PACA Mobile Center, a not-for-profit consortium, which has the largest worldwide handset library available to companies that want to test new content or applications. In his new role, Francois-Joseph will be responsible for supporting large-scale deployment of Mobile Distillery’s tools and services by proposing operators leverage a customizable framework to help developers easily design mobile applications for their range of devices.

Delphine Guyot Giler has become Head of Mobile Distillery’s Testing Labs. Delphine’s role will be to ensure the quality of Mobile Distillery’s fast-turnaround testing services for mobile applications on real handsets (OTA Download & Install, Java ME Quality, SIM Tool Kit application) and to assist customers in their testing plans.