Today is not an ordinary day for David Prosser. Normally the MD of Comunity would be sitting around a table with his team at their offices, finding out what they’ve been up to during the week and what they plan for next week. But today is about meetings with potential partners and clients. Comunity makes a middleware and application layer for the mobile application space, bridging the complex enterprise software world where large critical business systems run in datacentres, and the fast-moving mobile applications market.

We kick off the day with an early coffee at Doppio Zero in Sunninghill, Johannesburg. Prosser summarises his approach: “You have businesses that have their own enterprise systems with their own applications – and some off-the-shelf applications – that support a business process. Then you have your customers with this world of diversity embodied by all the different handsets. So the mass market mobile infrastructure should be the ideal channel to market: you don’t have to buy or service the network, you don’t have to buy the device, the device is always with the customer. However, there are unbelievable challenges servicing those customers because of the wide range of protocols, networks, devices, applications and capabilities.”