Interview with Sean Bowen, CEO of Push Technology

At Juegos Miami we had the opportunity to meet with the CEO & Founder of Push Technologies - the pioneers in creating technology solutions that deliver data to web, mobile, and IoT applications in real time.

What are the main benefits of using the data streaming platform of Push Technology?

Our data communications and management platform is not only about data streaming as we offer messaging and time series data as well. It enables you to build a very diverse array of products on one platform, which means you don't have to go from one platform to another – with Push Technology, all of your data management, monitoring, and control is available in one solution. 

The reason people generally come to us is data efficiency, which is one of the three pillars our product is built on. The first pillar we always talk about is “one pipe in and one out.”  The magic calculation for application development is how many gigabits per second you can get through the Internet pipe. If you’re messages are smaller, you can have more messages or serve more customers. What data communication efficiency also does for the eGaming sector is that it enables eGaming companies to send more betting opportunities. Before Push Technology stepped into the eGaming market, the revenue opportunities were limited in terms of in-play betting. Betting was predominantly pre-match. Our data efficiency is key because it opens up more revenue streams for eGaming companies.

The second pillar is latency.  The ability to deliver in-play betting opportunities is time-critical – the betting opportunity can disappear if the data does not get to the user fast enough. Companies were happy with 12 second delays back in 2007 – but now that time delay kills revenue opportunities and loses customers.  Seconds are no good, data must arrive in sub-seconds.

The third pillar is scale. We’ve gone from the old man with the peak cap and the Racing Post under his arm to a much wider demographic – thousands of users. It’s not a dark art anymore – and in 2007, we knew the numbers would increase.  The ability to scale to thousands of customers/users, and provide every user with a rich eGaming and betting experience is critical and application performance must be fast and consistent for 100 users or 100,000 users.

Making sure the game lobby has a ‘live’ view is key to the casino experience. We all run this over an unreliable shared network – the Internet. It’s not the traditional network that we’re used to – the 10Gbps pipe that is just yours to use. Unfortunately a lot of the eGaming industry has tried to shoe horn inefficient enterprise messaging into their eGaming software, or they’ve used open source and tried to build their own. But these solutions do not scale and provide users with an acceptable eGaming experience. 

Making data secure, 2-way, and fast, and then adding it to mobile and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices is a very hard technology problem.   We have spent 10 years solving this problem in a wide variety of environments.

No other data solution comes close to Push Technology’s performance or efficiency, thanks to our patented techniques. We give our customers a compelling competitive edge.

Working with us, most gaming companies see a natural 99% reduction in data usage. Recently one of our customers got a data reduction of over 20 times what they had previously and they moved from 5GB for 8 connections down to 120 MB for 200 connections. And if you think of emerging markets (for example Juegos Miami is very much focused on Latin America), bandwidth is costly. You don't have the capacity that you would have in other countries with huge data pipes. 

So can we say that Push Technology’s solutions are most useful for countries where the data infrastructure is still not very well developed?

If you're in an emerging market where the communications are smaller we guarantee performance even on those networks, regardless of congestion. We do a lot of testing and check how our software works on a 2G network as opposed to a 3G network. We get the data so small that it enables the platform to work even in difficult or challenging environments. Our value proposition becomes even more compelling if you work in an emerging market. 

How do you plan to adapt the platform with the fast development of technologies and mobile devices?

This has been the core of what we've done since Push Technology was founded. My team knows how to build systems that plug easily into other systems. Our product architecture is built in a way that, as new devices come out and new libraries come with them, we can quickly upgrade and make sure we are always in sync with the latest products on the market. 

At Push Technology, we have a well-balanced team, many of whom have been in the business for years and understand the intricacies of various industries.

Do you think that the constantly growing market of eGaming will soon come to an end or will it continue to evolve? 

The reality is that the world is big and we're  constantly touching  new territories. I know that gaming markets will always look at new demographics. There is a lot more growth out there. The  expansion of the gaming market has been staggering. I've seen companies grow by 5% every week for 10 years. And you don't find that in too many other markets. There are always new opportunities and new markets. For example, imagine what will happen if the US opens up – that is a huge market to go after for the gaming. The thing I love about the gaming market is that it's very innovative. We're always looking at new games, new apps, new ways of engaging the audience.

Do you agree that mobile devices are the only channels to reach the millennials?

 
They are certainly attached to their phones! Look at how much mobile has changed over the years or how many transactions now happen on mobile devices – this is strong a millennial influence.

So, obviously you are reaching out to customers outside the brick and mortar casinos. Do you see it as an opportunity for the land-based casino operators to reach out this audience and bring it somehow to their premises?

The retail sector faces similar challenges to the eGaming sector because most of the transactions in retail are now online. The problem is how to bring those customers into the store? The only way to do this properly is to offer a completely integrated omnichannel experience and start targeting people when they are close to your outlets. You have to entice them to transact inside rather than outside.  Similarly, millennials are more likely to transact on a device than go to a betting shop. 

Shall we say they are looking for a more convenient experience in order to save time and distance?

Time and distance are definitely reasons for doing things on mobile devices. Retailers have to offer something that is not on the mobile device in order to entice customers to buy.  

This can be done with a promotion – but the promotion is most effective when they are in the area. Importantly customers are less likely to go somewhere if it's not convenient. This is when technologies like ours become so compelling because we help companies bring the experience directly to the customers no matter where the customers are at any time. 

Author: Martin Ivanov

Associate Editor