Having invested almost $5 million in R&D last financial year, Perth start-up Harvest Technology Group (ASX:HTG) announced at its Annual General Meeting that it is ahead of schedule in the development of its next product, a cloud-based platform, code-named “NS2”.

Group Chief Executive Officer Paul Guilfoyle said NS2 represents an evolution of Harvest’s proprietary Nodestream ™ protocol, which he describes as the “engine” of their technology. 

“Nodestream™ delivers a range of hard and software interface options to transfer data from point-to-point and point-to-web – for instance, from a vessel in remote waters to an operations centre in a capital city – the next evolution will elevate the technology to the cloud, offering users a significantly more versatile ecosystem in which to collaborate,” said Guilfoyle

“At the application level, users will be able to login anywhere, on any device, at any time, and participate in workflows previously restricted to centralised operations centres.”

“This delivers increased operational efficiency, faster response times and further carbon footprint reductions.” 

The technology will enter the beta phase during the first half of 2023 as part of the product’s go-to-market process.

“Essentially, NS2 will incorporate our Nodestream™ engine within an ecosystem delivering synchronous data, audio, voice and video anywhere and anytime while combining all the capabilities available in cloud environments, such as artificial intelligence and scalable data storage,” said Guilfoyle

“With BYOD (bring your own device) becoming increasingly popular among today’s workforce, devices enabled with NS2 ensures users can connect from home or anywhere else in the world via a laptop or personal device regardless of location.”

“By combining communications channels, such as voice, video, and chat, NS2 offers a unifying solution that will revolutionise the future of the remote business landscape, solving problems we didn’t previously conceive to be solvable.”  he said

NS2 technology is the only of its kind in the world and has the capacity to amalgamate with dominant multi-site corporate platforms including:

• Microsoft Teams
• WebEx by Cisco
• Zoom

“In suburbs and cities, we take it for granted that we can easily connect with colleagues and run multiple applications from handheld devices or laptops, but it becomes challenging when you’re sailing remote waters, subsea, in the sky or out in the desert, not to mention outages due to climate crises, energy issues or geopolitical conflict,” says Guilfoyle

The NS2 innovation team in Perth, which consists of less than 20 in-house developers and engineers, has achieved what many thought was impossible: getting NS2 ready for release ahead of schedule.

In addition to investing $5 million on R&D, Harvest invested $1 million in creating an innovation hub in Perth’s Technology Park.

The technology also has the capability to work with artificial intelligence that can trigger safety alerts and notifications, as well as connect to wearable devices to enable subject matter experts to provide immediate guidance and make real-time operation-critical decisions without requiring personnel to travel to remote regions. 

Guilfoyle says this will prevent expensive stoppages or delays to work schedules. For instance with marine vessels, delays have the potential to cost upwards of $250,000 per day.

“As well as introducing operational efficiencies, with no need to fly in subject matter experts to solve or manage problems, NS2 plays a large part in reducing carbon footprint, as well as resourcing, diversity and wellbeing benefits due to the limited need for travel to remote areas.”

“This will see more parents or those with disabilities able to participate in their chosen professions.” says Guilfoyle

The current Infinity core product suite is in use with various customers across multiple sectors, including maritime, energy, mining, and defence, and promoted and resold through several partners, including Inmarsat, Speedlink and Marlink, some of the world’s largest satellite companies.

Harvest believes this latest product iteration will enhance the company’s scalability into the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) market.

The market is expected to reach USD$344.84 bn globally by 2028 from USD$93.25 bn in 2021 at a CAGR of 20.5%, based on the Grand View Research, Unified Communications Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report for 2021 to 2028 (Report ID 978-1-68038-164-1)