Bat-Briik

Bat-Briik Media Holdings Limited

Formerly	Bat-Briik Corporation (2008-2010)
Type	Public Company
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	July 21, 2010 (2010-07-21)
Founder	Remzi Widdmann
Area served	Makko Oko
Owner	Riduur Corporation Majority Shareholder (67%)
Number of employees	56,000 (2022)
Subsidiaries	Bat-Briik Mobile Bat-Briik Banking
Website	briikmedia.com.mk

Bat-Briik Media Holdings Limited, otherwise known as Bat-Briik, is a publicly-owned, state-authorized, telecommunications company in the Empire Of Makko Oko. Bat-Briik Media Holdings was incorporated after the expansion of product offerings on the subsidiary Bat-Briik MK company from just mobile services to mobile and banking services. Previously, the subsidiary had been known as Bat-Briik Corporation.

Bat-Briik is one of the only major companies in the empire to be founded by an original tribal member, being founded by Remzi Widdmann in 2010 upon the launch of the first mobile phone, the Riduur Internet Note, in collaboration and partnership with the then-CEO of Riduur, Jason Wesner, to make the first ever mobile phone successful. Riduur is the majority owner of Bat-Briik, having a 67% stake in the company.

Etymology

The name "Bat-Briik" is Makuri for On-Line, which without the dash means Online, an English word for being on the internet actively, or anything wirelessly connected.

History

Before Bat-Briik & Mobile Phones

Before the invention of mobile phones, all anybody had were flip phones, which did not or barely had internet connectivity and app support. Only a few companies dominated the phone app industry during the time of flip phones, but mobile phones had been a developing technology by multiple companies, one of them being Riduur. The invention of mobile phones was thought to be the doom of all the carriers at the time, due to the phone's use of new cellular technology.

Remzi Widdmann, at the time 40 years old, had an engineer friend who worked at Riduur Corporation, a major electronics manufacturer. The friend had told Remzi that Riduur was in the process of developing the first-ever mobile phone, not only by Riduur but also in Makko Oko.

Founding Of Bat-Briik Corporation & Partnership With Riduur

Remzi Widdmann had been able to convince their engineer friend to get them in contact with the CEO of Riduur, Jason Wesner, who met with Remzi in December of 2007. Riduur was struggling with the development of their phone, not because of the technology, but because of incompatibility with every current carrier's infrastructure in the nation. While the phone could roam successfully, domestic calling was failing due to the carriers using GSM, as opposed to the new standard, UTSM that all other nations were switching to.

Remzi and Jason got together with the companies' engineering teams and agreed to a partnership, officially forming Bat-Briik Corporation, with Riduur merely being a silent partner, and not an owner of the company. The company was incorporated on February 12th, 2008 as a publicly-traded company on the Jorian Stock Exchange (JSE).

Due to the company just starting out, it got a very limited amount of shares to distribute in its IPO, being merely 50,000 shares. Remzi Widdmann got the majority of the shares through fundraising and approval by the Makko Okoan Government, meanwhile Riddur Corporation bought a 5% stake in Bat-Briik Corporation. The rest of the shares were mainly bought by individual people, since the shares were so cheap and the company, along with its popularity, was rather small.

Monopoly Breakup, Carrier Establishment

When Bat-Briik first started, the company lacked any foundations on building up the carrier. They couldn't build any infrastructure due to missing the necessary licensing and the current carriers in the nation having total control over the signals and wavelengths. Remzi Widdmann and Riddur Corporation had lobbied the Makko Okoan Government to grant them a carrier license and rights to control the 93.67 Ghz wavelength, but was turned down by the National Commission Of Communications (NCC) because "One more carrier would oversaturate the market and provide too much competition for butting heads with".

After the denial, the future of Bat-Briik looked grim, but Riddur Corporation took the NCC to court and fought the block, with their legal team claiming "No other carrier has a promise to move onto the future by establishing the new cellular protocols. To deny the license to establish would not only harm production and development of new and emerging technology, but it would also cause insecurity and incompatibility internationally, blocking roaming features."

After a 6-month fight, the Supreme Court Of Makko Oko ruled in favor of Riddur Corporation & Bat-Briik Corporation, stating "This atmosphere reeks of a monopoly, and the court hereby sees it forbade within codified law. Bat-Briik Corporation is to be granted their license and it shall not be impeded against."

Growth Of Bat-Briik Corporation

Bat-Briik officially launched their infrastructure on December 16th, 2008 exclusively for Riddur Internet Phone users who lived in major metropolitan areas, the same day the Riddur Internet Phone launched. On February 20th, 2009, Bat-Briik launched its infrastructure for all compatible phones and in all areas. Bat-Briik grew rather fast, mostly with tribal people, who saw Bat-Briik as the "Only Tribal Mobile Carrier". By mid-2009, Bat-Briik had an estimated 200,000 customers, with an estimated 50% of them being tribal people. The Makko Okoan Republic reported that Bat-Briik had the most tribal people acquisition of any other major telecom company, and was one of the fastest-growing startups.

Bat-Briik was said to have such high growth due to the popularity of the Riddur Internet Phone, which upon launch sold 200,000 units within the first week. Growth of the Riddur Internet Phone had been rather slow due to the weariness of the population to the new technology, with adaptation of the technology being rather slow, but had been accelerated by 2010. To help sales, Riddur supported GSM carriers infrastructure on the Internet Phone until 2012, wherein the functionality got removed completely after a system update.

Riddur Buyout, New Ownership

By June 17th, 2012, the official discontinuation of support for GSM infrastructure on the Riddur Internet Phone had taken effect. By the end of the year, Bat-Briik had 8 million customers, with 24% of them joining close to or after the discontinuation of GSM support. Only one other carrier at the time, Cellextrincs Wireless, had moved over or supported the UTSM standard. Due to the early adoption by Bat-Briik, and their smaller size, Bat-Briik had gained more customers in the nation's GSM transition to UTSM.

After the major successes seen by the UTSM transition, and the competition being crushed due to the only mobile phone technology at the time supporting it, Riddur Corporation saw an opportunity to further advance UTSM technology and its implementation within the nation, expanding to a new industry entirely. The CEO at the time, Jason Wesner, said that this was due to their company's engineers already working on carrier infrastructure and therefore gaining the experience to do so continuously.

Riddur Corporation sought to buy out the majority shares in Bat-Briik, advancing forwards before any other company had the opportunity, for an estimated value of $870M SLO's. Remzi Widdmann approved the buyout by Riddur, taking all of the money in a cash and stocks deal, with half of the value being in Riddur stocks and the other half being in cash-only. Originally questioned by the Justice Department, the deal was allowed to go through with no issues raised.

The buyout was made official on December 4th, 2012.