Durham, NC – Urban Planet Mobile, the world’s leading mobile education provider, has been named as a 2011 Cool Vendor in Education by Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), the world’s leading information and advisory company, for its Urban English Language Learning Program.
Urban Planet Mobile is one of three companies in the world to be honored with this coveted and extremely sought after recognition.
Distinguishing characteristics that separated Urban Planet’s Urban English Program from others was the program’s simplicity, usefulness of its design, and its ability to deliver detailed English language lessons to any type of cell phone via text messages (SMS) with an attached English Learning ring tone that can be downloaded and saved to be listened to repeatedly. This approach allows the service to reach the market where it can make the most difference: developing countries.
“Ensuring that the Urban English Program was globally accessible and easy to use was our top priority and Gartner’s recognition of the Urban English Program’s design confirms that we achieved our goal in building our product in the most effective, useful and usable way,” said Brian OliverSmith, President and CEO of Urban Planet Mobile. “The power of this recognition cannot be understated as it is one of the singularly most important honors any company can receive. The recognition from Gartner verifies our place among the most forward thinking and innovative educational companies in the world. Being named a Cool Vendor by Gartner allows us to form additional alliances with mobile phone carriers and continue to get our product in the hands of the billions of consumers who desperately want and need them.”
“Leveraging old established technology such as Short Message Service (SMS) and the ring tone file format can be more innovative and effective than Smartphone functionality when it comes to learning a language.” Gartner, Inc., “Cool Vendors in Education 2011″, Jan-Martin Lowendahl, 22 April 2011.
The Urban English Language Learning Program is the largest, most comprehensive library of English Language learning for mobile education and because of smart product design, the daily lessons are available to 95% of handsets and reaches 85% of the English learning population worldwide. The Urban English line is being expanded using the current audio as the building block for an animated library to exploit the growing web enabled, smartphone market, while retaining design simplicity to still reach the greatest percentage of the worldwide market.
Gartner, Inc. is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, providing the most comprehensive collection of analysis and advice for the users and vendors of technology. Each year, Gartner identifies new Cool Vendors in key technology areas and publishes a series of research reports highlighting these innovative vendors and their products and services. Gartner included the Urban Planet Mobile Urban English Program on its 2011 list after the program won the 2011 GSM Award for Best Mobile Learning Innovation.
Urban Planet Mobile is the leading provider of education and information products created specifically for delivery via mobile phone. With products ranging from English language learning programs to SAT preparation, Urban Planet Mobile is the only company to develop literacy lessons for delivery to any mobile phone. Additional information about the company can be obtained at www.urbanplanetmobile.com or by calling (919) 323-8763.