It all started with a request for then-IT professionals at SuperPlus Food Dane Spencer and Marlon Hudson to source protective accessories for company-owned Blackberry phones.

The duo executed that assignment so effectively that not only did they meet the demands of the supermarket chain, but they also gained customers of their own. As demand for accessories grew, Spencer and Hudson’s small sales venture eventually developed into a business, and soon they had to lease a space to hold inventory for the expanding operation.

“…Smart Mobile Solutions (SMS) came about as a reaction to a circumstance that myself and Marlon were in, and we were faced with a challenge as IT professionals. We generated an idea from research and the discovery of accessories that were not readily available on the market…”

“Before, we had to be walking around with duffel bags filled with accessories. And then when the duffel bags and the car trunk didn’t work anymore, Marlon said it was time for us to formalise the business and approach things in a different way,” Spencer said in recounting how the venture got started in 2008.

Fast-forward 16 years later, Smart Mobile Solutions has expanded the suite of products it carries as well as its service offerings to include repairs and other IT services, mobile device management, customised software solutions, and as a provider of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment.

Last week, the company launched what it says is another new “game-changing product”: device as a service (DaaS).

DaaS allows for the integration of technical services, software studio solutions, and support for commodities to create comprehensive solutions for customers. By combining these elements into an all-inclusive package, Smart Mobile Solutions aims to revolutionise the use of technology. “We are doing this to shape and revolutionise the use of technology. Our goal is to enable consumers — whether businesses, government entities, or individuals — to acquire devices through a monthly fee. You are also able to trade in your old devices for a rebate on new ones and ultimately reduce your cost of ownership over time.

“This will keep you connected with the latest technology, so even if you acquire these devices and realise they are not suitable, you will be able to trade them in, acquire new devices, and enter a new payment cycle… Now this is devices as a service… What more can I say,” Spencer said during the product launch on Thursday, June 20, 2024 at Jamaica Pegasus’s Talk of the Town in Kingston, Jamaica.

In conjunction with its efforts to expand its product and service offerings, Smart Mobile Solutions is pursuing business both regionally and globally through its Miami operations.

The company, which has over 200 clients and a customer base in excess of 14,000, is said to be the first and only full-service technology solutions support unit in Jamaica, offering a wide range of hardware and software solutions. Smart Mobile Solutions is also the sole vendor of mobile handset protection plans in the Caribbean (Smart Protect), driven by innovation and productivity.

Smart Mobile Solutions lives true to its slogan ‘On the Go’ and boasts the milestones of being the first company to focus on mobile solutions in the Caribbean — which is software for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices — the first Blackberry Non-Carrier Alliance member in the English-speaking Caribbean, the provider of the first mobile tracking solution in Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean, introduced through Hawkeye as a mobile panic button and tracking platform.

Smart Mobile’s development team is also responsible for several custom mobile and enterprise web applications, the launch of mobile protection plans in November 2014 underwritten by local insurance company GK General Insurance Company, master supply agreements with Digicel Group and CWC Caribbean, and being an authorised Samsung distributor, authorised Lenovo distributor, authorised distributor for TCL, LOGIC, COOLPAD, and a Samsung authorised service centre, with strong carrier relationships across the Caribbean.

The company was also awarded over 40 government contracts across the region, including but not limited to supplying e-learning tablets in school programmes for the St Vincent Government Ministry Of Education, the Ministry of Security in Cayman, and the Ministry of Health in Guyana.

“I am particularly happy to be here, because I am seeing two young black Jamaican entrepreneurs who had an idea, built their businesses, and have succeeded despite the odds. I am happy to be here because, frankly, I just thought you sold tablets and phones, but it is important that you are doing the development of software,” said shadow minister of finance and the public service Julian Robinson during the launch.

“In Jamaica, we have been consumers of the technology, we need to become producers of the technology and you have shifted to that, you have demonstrated that you can find solutions to problems here in Jamaica. Same problems exist in the Caribbean and other parts of the world, so you can earn foreign exchange, so you can grow your business, that is what the country needs,” Robinson continued.