Hong Kong-based Green Tomato is feeding the city's seemingly insatiable appetite for mobile devices, having launched more than 80 applications for the iPhone and iPad since 2009. Getty Images

　　总部位于香港的Green Tomato正在努力地满足这个城市对移动设备似乎永无止境的渴求。自2009年以来，这家公司已经为iPhone和iPad推出了80多款应用程序。

　　The developer is behind apps for Pizza Hut, the newspaper Apple Daily and Hong Kong Disneyland. Established in 2003 as a mobile-solutions consultancy, in 2007 Green Tomato was named one of Red Herring magazine's 100 top private technology companies world-wide. In addition to its 80 mobile applications, the company has created 150 mobile websites that it says reach around three million subscribers in all.

　　Green Tomato还为必胜客(Pizza Hut)、《苹果日报》(Apple Daily)和香港狄斯奈乐园(Hong Kong Disneyland)开发了应用程序。这家移动解决方案咨询公司创建于2003年，到2007年就入围了《红鲱鱼》(Red Herring)杂志全球私营科技公司排名前100名的榜单。除了80款移动应用程序之外，公司还创建了150个移动网站，该公司称这些网站的注册用户总数已经达到了约300万人。

　　Business started off locally, says chief executive Sunny Kok, but has expanded globally-with projects that include the world-wide app for car maker BMW. Green Tomato now has offices in Singapore and Qatar, and Mr. Kok wants to prove Asia's gift for innovation around the world.

　　首席执行长郭秉鑫表示，Green Tomato业务虽然是从香港本土起步，但现在已经扩展到了全世界——包括为宝马汽车公司(BMW)开发全球应用程序。Green Tomato目前在新加坡和卡塔尔设有办公室，郭秉鑫希望能向全世界证明亚洲的创新能力。

　　"People think that China can only copy something," he says.

　　他说，“人们认为中国只会仿制一些东西。”

　　Mr. Kok and marketing communications officer Jacqueline Chong talked to the Wall Street Journal about the future of mobile technology in Hong Kong and beyond.

　　Green Tomato郭秉鑫和Green Tomato市场营销专员Jacqueline Chong向《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)畅谈了移动技术未来在香港以及世界范围内的发展前景。

　　What's been a game-changer in the world of technology in the past few years?

　　《华尔街日报》：过去几年来，是什么改变了技术界的游戏规则？

　　Mr. Kok: The iPhone changed everything, including consumer behavior. On the MTR [subway], you see that people are watching their phones rather than listening to their phones. People are using apps much more than before. We think this will continue with devices like the Blackberry Playbook and Nokia's new smartphones with Windows Mobile. People using apps on their mobiles will be a must and it's going to be an increasingly crowded app market.

　　郭秉鑫：iPhone改变了一切，包括消费者的行为方式。在MTR地铁上，你会发现人们都在看着他们的手机而不是在听他们的手机。人们对应用程序的使用要比以往多得多。我们认为，这种现象在黑莓平板电脑Blackberry Playbook和搭载有Windows Mobile作业系统的诺基亚新智能手机身上将会得到继续。人们在手机上使用应用程序将成为一种必需，所以未来应用程序市场也将会越来越拥挤。

　　What technology are you excited about that's not on the Hong Kong market yet?

　　《华尔街日报》：什么技术让你感到振奋但却还没有出现在香港市场？

　　Mr. Kok: NFC [Near Field Communication] modules-it's a general technology like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi that will be embedded in upcoming phones. The concept is like a Hong Kong Octopus card-you can make transactions like a credit card. I think this concept will totally change behavior of people while they shop. Your transactions can then be displayed on the particular app.

　　郭秉鑫：近场通讯技术(Near Field Communication，简称NFC)模组——它是一种类似于蓝牙(Bluetooth)或者Wi-Fi的通用技术，将在未来的手机上得到使用。它的概念有点儿像香港的八达通卡(Octopus card)——你可以像使用信用卡一样用它来进行交易。我想，这个概念将会完全改变人们在购物时的行为方式。你的交易明细随后可以通过一款特别的应用程序显示出来。

　　What are you hoping to do with NFC technology?

　　《华尔街日报》：你希望NFC技术实现什么样的功能？

　　Mr. Kok: We have corporate clients, and more than 90% of them have membership systems. Applications that are NFC-enabled can organize all the loyalty points right there [once you buy directly from your phone]. This will be the trend for the next one to two years.

　　郭秉鑫：我们的公司客户中超过90%都建立了会员制度。采用NFC技术的应用程序可以当即整理你所有的积分（只要你是通过手机直接购物的），这将成为未来一到两年内的一种趋势。

　　What else are you looking forward to?

　　《华尔街日报》：你还有什么其他的期待？

　　Mr. Kok: We're excited about glass, plasma and LCD surface devices that can connect to the Internet. So far it's been too expensive, so it's not that popular. I think the technology will be cheaper in just one to two years. The usage will be different from a tablet or a mobile device-it's more like furniture. You can interact with it while brushing your teeth, cooking food. But I think the potential is more on the commercial side rather than domestic use. It can be used in a shop window or a display table in a commercial building.

　　郭秉鑫：我们对能够连接互联网的玻璃、等离子和液晶显示器设备感到兴奋。目前它的价格非常昂贵，因此还不太普及。我想这项技术的造价在一两年内就会降下来。它的用法与平板电脑或者移动设备大不相同——而更像是一件家俱，你在刷牙、做饭的时候都可以和它进行互动，但我想它的潜力更多在于商业用途，而不是家庭使用。它可以用于商店橱窗或者商业楼宇的显示幕。

　　Android is now the world's most popular smartphone software, but it lags behind the iPhone for apps. Will this change?

　　《华尔街日报》：安卓(Android)目前是世界上最流行的智能手机软件，但它在应用程序方面要落后于iPhone。这种情况会改变吗？

　　Mr. Kok: Android is very important because it's got a lot of hardware brands that support the software. It has a lower price point-that's why it's more popular right now.

　　郭秉鑫：安卓非常重要，因为它得到了很多硬体品牌的支援。它的价位比较低——这就是为什么它现在比别的软件更加流行的原因。

　　Ms. Chong: But the Android market is quite segmented. Manufacturers and operators each develop individual app markets. Some of them even block the original Android app market, so it's difficult for users to explore good apps. Jacqueline Chong：

　　但是安卓市场分散化的现象非常严重。制造商和运营商各自开发自己的应用程序市场。他们当中的一些人甚至阻断了安卓最初的应用程序市场，因此使用者很难发现好的应用程序。

　　And it seems like the Android market will continue to be fragmented as more and more operators develop smartphones. Different parties will have different interests. They can't touch IOS if they're not Apple, so Android is the only way to go. While Apple is very centralized, Android is largely fragmented-you're seeing two extremes.

　　而且，随着越来越多的运营商开始研发智能手机，安卓的市场似乎仍将保持分散状态。不同方面拥有不同的利益。如果不是苹果公司(Apple)的产品，就无法使用IOS作业系统，因此安卓就成了唯一的选择。苹果高度集中，而安卓在很大程度上却呈现分散局面——这是两个极端。

　　What smartphone system do you prefer?

　　《华尔街日报》：你喜欢什么样的智能手机系统？

　　Mr. Kok: Developers love iPhones-the IOS software is much easier to use. We're looking forward to the iPhone 5. Supposedly, NFC technology can be hooked up to the iPhone 5.

　　郭秉鑫：研发人员喜欢iPhone——IOS软件使用起来要容易得多。我们正在期待着iPhone 5面世，它很有可能将会采用NFC技术。

　　Developing Android apps is 10 times more difficult than iPhone apps. According to our experience, for our Hong Kong Movies app, we have only 20% downloads coming from Android.

　　研发安卓的应用程序要比iPhone困难10倍。按照我们的经验，我们的“香港电影”(Hong Kong Movies)应用程序只有20%的下载量来自安卓系统。

　　What do you think of Nokia's recent announcement that it will partner with Windows Mobile software for its smartphones?

　　《华尔街日报》：诺基亚(Nokia)最近宣布将与Windows Mobile软件合作开发其智能手机，你怎么看待这件事情？

　　Mr. Kok: Nokia still sells the most phones in the world, so it's in a good position. But it really depends on how it will integrate with Windows Mobile. We're not sure whether it will fit. Windows will only support English-it will still be a long, long way before it can host different languages-but Nokia is very popular in developing countries. Windows's interface and overall experience is gorgeous, though.

　　郭秉鑫：诺基亚仍然是全球手机销量最大的公司，因此它处于一个非常有利的位置，但事实上这将取决于它如何与Windows Mobile进行整合。我们不确定双方的整合能否顺利进行。Windows将仅仅支援英语一种语言——要想支援不同的语言，它还有很长、很长的一段路要走——但是诺基亚在发展中国家很受欢迎，当然Windows的介面和整体感觉都非常棒。

　　What are your most popular apps?

　　《华尔街日报》：你们公司的哪款应用程序最受欢迎？

　　Ms. Chong: Our Hong Kong Movie app on the iPhone [which aggregates show times, seat plans and theater information] has accumulated more than 700,000 viewers and 70,000 unique visitors. Our new Top Box voice-messenger app [for sending short voice messages] reached a million users in two months and sends more than four million messages a day. Right now it's only on the iPhone but we want to launch Android and Blackberry apps by the end of the year. What was really surprising was that our Top Box app, which is only in English, became the No. 1 social networking app in China for a couple of days.

　　Jacqueline Chong：我们在iPhone手机上推出的“香港电影”应用程序（集合了放映时间、座位图以及剧场信息）的累计访问数已经超过了70万次，其中唯一访问数达到了7万次。我们新推出的TalkBox语音信息应用程序（专为发送语音短信开发）在两个月内就拥有了100万使用者，每天发送语音信息超过400万条。目前只有iPhone手机拥有此项功能，但是我们希望在今年年底之前推出针对安卓和黑莓的应用程序。最令人惊讶的是，这款TalkBox应用程序——仅支援英语一种语言——已经成为了中国排名首位的社交网路类应用程序。