For immediate press release – BAK2u Pte Ltd releases Mobile Security Software that protects Blackberry Device & Companies. Companies risk losing competitive edge through stolen BlackBerry devices.

Employees are risking themselves and their employers when they lost their BlackBerry to theft with loads of sensitive information in it that gives free access to bank account numbers, credit cards, project details, videos, photos, text messages and even emails to the public or competitors!

PhoneBAK BB (WipeOut) is the latest mobile security software from BAK2u Pte Ltd that wipes out all information and reports back the identity and location of the thief!

PhoneBAK BB (WipeOut) helps owner track down the thief through alert SMS text, email, IMEI*, IMSI* and even thief’s contact number when the device is stolen. The mobile security software also assist in wiping out all sensitive information (Contacts, Categories, Emails, Phone Logs, Events, Memos, To Do Lists, Home User Subfolders ) simply with a trigger to the stolen device.

About: BAK2u Pte Ltd is a leading startup from Singapore that develops mobile security solutions (patent-pending) to protect clients’ communication devices and sensitive information; identification of thief via contact number, location, IP address, machine serial number and even video of the perpetrator. BAK2u protects iPhone, PDA phone, mobile phone, laptop, digital camera, iPod,
External hard drive, USB Flash Drives etc. PhoneBAK BB (WipeOut) is now available as a standalone program in BAK2u.com and 28 other countries.

If you’d like more information about this software, please call Charlene Pan at +65 63376541 or e-mail sales(at)bak2u.com

Finally, the videos for the the Barcamp II – Maps and Mobile Unconference held on 21 May 2008 in NUS Extension, Park Mall are out. The event was organized by the combined team of Singapore PHP User Group, E27 (Garag3) and Barcamp Singapore. We thank Google Singapore for sponsoring this event. The first part will feature videos from the two keynote speakers – Andrew McGlinchey (Geo Product Manager for SE Asia, Google Singapore) and Gerard Lim, CTO of Bak2u.

Keynote 1: “Google Maps – Building the Geoweb Together” by Andrew McGlinchey (Geo Product Manager for SE Asia, Google Singapore)

Press Release – GadgetTrakâ„¢ and BAK2uâ„¢ the providers of anti-theft software for mobile devices, adds PC theft recovery solution to their product line-up. GadgetTrak now provides anti-theft solutions for both Mac® and PC laptops, as well as mobile phones and removable media devices such as iPods®, GPS devices, flash drives and more.

SINGAPORE & PORTLAND, Ore. – February 21, 2008 – BAK2uâ„¢ has launched GadgetTrak for Windows® PC. The new software protects systems from theft by utilizing powerful privacy-safe tracking technology to provide network and location information in the event it is stolen.

Unlike traditional theft recovery software for PCs, GadgetTrak’s solution utilizes privacy-safe tracking technology that does not rely on a monitoring center, or back-doors into the system. The information collected is sent directly to the owner of the device, with no “man-in-the-middle” required to transmit, or store the information.

GadgetTrak Founder Ken Westin stated “It has been the most requested solution by our customer base, but we wanted to make sure we had solution that would both protect the system in the event of theft, as well our customers’ privacy. I don’t think people realize just how invasive some of the existing PC solutions are, or what information is being collected and stored regarding their movements.”

BAK2u Founder Paddy Tan added “We have heard your call for protection to your laptop, for business, home users and even bloggers on the move too. Now with GadgetTrak for Windows® PC, it will meet the needs of these users”

In addition to respecting customer’s privacy, GadgetTrak for Windows PC runs silently and is tamper proof, utilizing various tactics to evade detection. To uninstall the software requires an easy-to-use application, as well as administrator password. GadgetTrak has also been designed and tested in hostile network environments to ensure that location and network information is delivered in the event of a theft.

Pricing for GadgetTrak for Windows PC starts at US$39.95 with volume and educational discounts available. For more information regarding GadgetTrak for Windows PC, or GadgetTrak’s other anti-theft solutions visit:

BAK2u.com
GadgetTrak.com

About BAK2u
BAK2u Pte Ltd is a Singapore startup company (2005) that develops and provides unique lost & found services through anti-theft softwares to protect owners’ gadgets; PDA phones, mobile phones, iPods, PSPs, Digital Cameras, USB Flash Drives and laptops.

About GadgetTrak
Based in Portland, Oregon GadgetTrak (www.gadgettrak.com)provides proven theft recovery solutions for a wide range of mobile devices including both PC and Mac laptops, mobile phones and removable media devices such as MP3 players, flash drives, external hard drives, GPS devices and more.

BAK2u Pte Ltd (BAK2u.com) extended it security software for users of cell phones, PDA phones, Mac to the latest anti-theft software for Blackberry owners.

Singapore January 4, 2007 - BAK2u (www.bak2u.com) announced the newest security software PhoneBAK BB, an innovative lost and found anti-theft program for BlackBerry Wireless Handheld and Smartphones devices.

The program works quietly by automatically checking on the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card when inserted into the phone.

It sends out pre-set SMS Text message and email alerts (local & overseas) with information of IMEI, IMSI, location and the thief’s contact number when the program detects that it is an unauthorized user!

“PhoneBAK BB is the answer to executives that hold confidential and sensitive information in their crackberries. You lost it doesn’t mean that you don’t want it return bak2u too.

Also, why put yourself to the risk of identity theft from the information stored in your stolen device?”

Act now not later.

About BAK2u
BAK2u Pte Ltd (www.bak2u.com) based in develops and provides unique lost & found services through anti-theft softwares to protect owners’ gadgets; PDA phones, mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras, iPods, External hard drives, USB Flash Drives etc.

Media:
For more details, please contact Charlene Pan.

Device Theft Recovery Software Leaders GadgetTrak and BAK2u Form Technology Alliance. GadgetTrak and BAK2u have formed a technology alliance to share theft recovery software technologies, expanding protection for Apple® computers and iPods®, cell phones, Sony® PSP, PDAs and a growing list of removable media devices.

Portland, OR (PRWEB) October 2, 2007 — GadgetTrak (www.gadgettrak.com) and BAK2u (www.bak2u.com) have announced a technology alliance to expand device protection. Through this synergy, both companies will broaden their theft recovery software offerings to include coverage for Apple® computers and iPods®, cell phones, PDAs, Sony® PSP, GPS devices, digital cameras, flash drives and a long list of other removable media devices.

BAK2u provides unique theft recovery software solutions for cell phones and PDAs as well as Apple computer products. GadgetTrak, based in Portland, Oregon provides patent-pending theft recovery software for removable media devices such as iPods and other MP3 players, Sony PSPs, digital cameras, GPS systems, USB flash drives and more.

Through the partnership both companies will now be offering each others’ theft recovery technologies to their respective regions exclusively. The two companies will also continue to collaborate in the development of theft recovery solutions for multiple mobile platforms.

“The fact that both companies can now protect the majority of gadgets on the market today for business and consumers, ranging from cell phones, PDAs, iPods, laptops and more is unprecedented,” stated Paddy Tan, CEO of BAK2u.

“We are seeing device theft become a bigger problem, be it a cell phone, laptop or an iPod. GadgetTrak and BAK2u are responding to this demand, by developing the best mobile technology solutions to help our customers protect their investments,” stated Ken Westin, CEO of GadgetTrak.

You can check out their new product from this link.

About GadgetTrak
GadgetTrak (www.gadgettrak.com) based in Portland, Oregon, provides theft recovery software for portable devices such as Mac computers, iPods, cell phones, PDAs, GPS systems, digital cameras, USB flash drives and more. GadgetTrak is currently protecting over ten thousand devices worldwide and has a 90 percent recovery rate.

About BAK2u
BAK2u Pte Ltd (www.bak2u.com) based in Singapore develops and provides unique lost & found services through anti-theft softwares to protect owners’ gadgets; PDA phones, mobile phones and laptops. ID labels service is also available for portable items like camera, bags, computer peripherals.

Contact
info@gadgettheft.com
custsvc@bak2u.com

Sometime back, a Singaporean based company by the name of BAK2u have made it as a service help consumers keep track of their gadgets in CNN news. So after a couple of gatherings (from Ping.SG party to a couple of twitters and chat), BL sat down with Paddy Tan, the co-founder from BAK2u for an email interview to tell us more about what the company does in the realm of security, his personal trials and tribulations and how he sees the future of his company.

BL: Hi Paddy, thank you for taking the time to speak to us in SG Entrepreneurs. Let’s start off with your background before you started BAK2u.

Paddy Tan: I joined a contract manufacturing company in Year 2000 after I completed my National Service. I was a business development engineer with the new business division where we take care of designing and manufacturing 3rd parties accessories for Palm PDA.

From that job, I traveled a fair bit between the States and various other countries in Europe and Asia and along the way extended my exposure on how corporate clients use PDA devices to work and function.

Left the job about 2 years later, when I was headhunted to run an office here in Singapore for a Hong Kong Wireless Solution company. The team pioneered several interesting cutting edge wireless solutions for Field Service Agents, Sales Force Agents using PDA phones. That was when the asia telecommunication market started to pick up making use of 2.5 and 3G network integrating into their business processes.

During the SARs period, like many other companies it was affected and that was when I decided to try my hands on running my own businesses. A close friend of mine started a BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing) company here in Singapore where we handle automotive and technology related companies linking them to European companies. We become their arms and legs in Europe for the Singapore clients here. With the company moving a notch up, stabilizing overtime within 2 years I decided to step back and pursue something else, BAK2u came into the picture.

BL: What got you motivated to start up BAK2u? What’s the story behind that?
Paddy Tan: My friend Chris Chan and I started BAK2u Pte Ltd in Year 2005 together. It was a setup that was bound to happen as I met Chris when I was a country manager for the Hong Kong company, and he was rather new having just joined the partner’s company too. We hit it off sharing a lot of business ideas about running our own businesses and from one conversation, where I brought it up about losing items when traveling and it be great to have a simpler way to get it back.

Overtime, he and I got together to discuss more and he came up with the name ‘BAK2u’ as in ‘Back to you’ – ‘returning the lost items back to the owner’. The name was created in the Delifrance in Bugis Junction around late 2004.

The company BAK2u Pte Ltd was established in May, Year 2005.

BL: What were the initial difficulties and challenges you faced in this industry, given that the mobile market is pretty competitive? How did you overcome them?
Paddy Tan: BAK2u started with only 1 single product, that is label.

BAK2u’s uniquely coded labels are specifically designed to help the owner to get their lost valuable items back quickly.

Every BAK2u Identification Number is unique – no two are alike. The BAK2u number allows us to know who owns the item, and lets the owner avoid revealing any personal information just by simply pasting it on the items and registering it at our website.

If lost and found (usually in public places like airports, restaurants, public transports etc), anyone that contacted us, we will retrieve the found items and return to the owner.

No one was doing that here in Singapore so basically we faced not much challenges from any other competitors but the biggest challenge is not from competitors but more of the potential customers themselves. Corporate clients see the value in protecting their companies assets like USB thumbdrives, ext hdd, phones etc with strong belief but not so much from the consumers as some do not believe others will return any found items with a strong belief that men in general are not honest.

It was only in mid 2006 that we decided to move up from just ‘proactive’ to more ‘reactive’. And to do that, the first anti-theft software PhoneBAK for Microsoft Powered PDA phone was born. It was launched almost exactly a year after BAK2u was established. (See the two screenshots below provided by Paddy on a PDA Phone)

Verey I is a simple and ingenious anti-theft software that helps keep track of Mac laptops and computers globally. It works by detecting the IP addresses including wired and nearby wireless network, machine serial number, MAC hardware Address, and even a video capture if stolen and access by an unauthorized user. All these information will be captured and send to any pre-defined email addresses.

In Aug 2007, Verey I + Twitter service was launched again together with Club 21 iShop here in Singapore.

Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing. For some friends you might want instant mobile updates—for others, you can just check the web. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.

My colleague came out with this idea to integrate Twitter in it and from a value added feature standing, when the owner loses his laptop he does not have to rush home or to any internet cafe to wait for the captured information to be sent to him. Instead if the thief is to use the laptop, the necessary information can still be sent to the owner via SMS, IM, email and the web too. Also, the information can also be shared to those followers of this twitter user too, worldwide.

BL: We see that you move beyond the mobile phones and started providing security for computers, and why do you decide to move into the security market for Mac?
Paddy Tan: The movement is not entirely moving away, away from mobile phones to another market but more of expanding our coverage to more gadgets. I myself am a gadget freak and I look forward to the day whenever someone gets a new gadget, the first thing on their mind is to how to protect this investment and BAK2u comes into the picture.

Being a Mac supporter myself and almost the entire gang in the company, we look forward to covering whatever is coming out in the market too.

BL: That’s pretty cool since I am also a fellow mac user. Presumably Singapore is a small market for your products. What other markets are you currently targetting and why? Do you need a big community to have a locked-in effect for your product?
Paddy Tan: Frankly, BAK2u was never known in Singapore market. It is not that we do not want to start here but somehow from many walls we hit, many local companies themselves do not believe in us. Not because of the products but because it is a Singapore company and yes even if they are a local company also.

We started very much in Europe and other parts of the world as the softwares work worldwide too. Probably the time wasn’t ripe yet but we are not giving it up so we look outside first but always tilt our heads back to look for opportunities again back in Singapore.

Our first break came when we were featured in Springwise.com under their Life-hack category as the ‘Lost and Found in the 21st century’. From there we expanded to other countries in europe and also to africa and USA market too. As long as anyone that uses mobile phones, PDA phones, Mac laptops they can be our customers.

*Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. Ferociously tracking more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities, digital cameras at hand.

Early this year, I second guessed that it may probably be a good time to be back to Singapore as the noises start to pick up from the local internet scene, especially the blogsphere where our products are mentioned by some customers that managed to get back their stolen items.

We are still trying but the chances of establishing ourselves as a Singapore company should be getting closer, and thankfully to the great support and strong belief in us from Club 21 iShop they guide us along the way for the local market.

BL: We heard that your company has recently been featured on CNN. A lot of us are wondering how you managed to get yourself on international news. Interested in sharing your story?

Paddy Tan: Most likely it was from the month, May when we launched our Verey I (brochure on the product, provided by BAK2u) for Mac. It created quite a stir in the Mac communities and there were some interviews and reviews on the software too.

Maybe that was how our name popped up again and caught the attention of Mr Steve Mollman again.

Mr Steve Mollman interviewed us back in September 2005 under The Asian Wall Street Journal on an article about ‘A Safey Net for Lost Gadgets’. A customer of ours was interviewed when he lost his thumb drive and we managed to find it back for him through our service.

He contacted us in late May 2007 regarding an article that he is writing about keeping track on gadgets, and he found a customer of BAK2u that wrote in to Straits Times Forum in May also that our standalone anti-theft software PhoneBAK helped her got back her stolen Nokia N70 from a thief.

BL: What are the three important lessons you believe that young entrepreneurs of today should learn through your experience?
Paddy Tan: I am still learning here from everyone since my experience are not that much too. I believe 3 of the more important lessons will be;

• 1. You must have fun in the company that you are running. Without that ‘fun’ factor in the day to day running, it be no different running it like a salaried job. (except that you don’t expect to pay yourself anything even if the company starts to make money in the growing stage)
• 2. A strong supportive families and friends can make you go the extra miles. When I first started BAK2u, there were no questions asked by my wife and parents. They just told me to go try it out, hit the walls and the ground a few times, something is bound to work. Whenever I am down with all the problems heavy on the shoulders, I just need to look at them to give me strength and confident to move an inch closer.Appreciate them along the way, it makes the journey filled with hopes and more enjoyable.
• 3. Not only you need to ‘multi-task’ but also ‘multi-skilled’, there is no sales, marketing, logistic, programming departments. You have to be everything; ‘Jack of all trades and try to be master of some’ too.There is no such thing as ‘the school didnt teach me this or that’, therefore I do not know how to do it. Either you learn to swim or you learn to hold your breath longer.

BL: Do you see BAK2u as a security company? What are the market trends you foresee will happen in the next two years?
Paddy Tan: I see BAK2u more of a company that tries to ease the anxiety of a owner that lost his/her gadget, putting a smile back on them. Not a security company, not a development house but more of a service provider in protecting owner’s gadgets with interesting and fun software.

BL: Once again, Paddy, thank you for the interview. We wish you all the best for the future.

Related Links:
You can read more about the recent developments of BAK2u in their blog.