NEW YORK-Wireless users may be free of the wire but not of the clutter. Despite the image of untethered communications, they are burdened with a bevy of devices.
Only technology buffs are willing to carry around a bag full of wireless communicators that cannot interact with each other, said Ronald E. Spears, president and chief executive officer of MobileLogic Inc., New York.
“I’ve got a RIM (interactive pager), a Palm (handheld computer), a cell phone, a PC air card. At some point, it gets a little ridiculous. People want to carry just one device,” he said at the recent Lehman Brothers Inc. “Wireless Internet Conference.”
“We need across-the-board platform solutions to lock up and address data to all devices, not just a one-point solution, which is the only thing available today.”
Spears joined MobileLogic in June after serving as president and CEO of CMGI Solutions, which provides companies with content, infrastructure and strategic consulting for their electronic business endeavors. CMGI@Ventures, a venture capital firm with the same parent, is one of six investors to provide MobileLogic, established in 1999, with $25.5 million in start-up equity.
MobileLogic delivers wireless access to data housed in a corporate enterprise’s local area network. Its customers include Alliant Exchange, formerly Kraft Food Services, Samsonite Luggage and the U.S. Army.
Its first Research In Motion Ltd. pagers and Palm Inc. handheld computers came on line during the third quarter. With RIM, MobileLogic first is offering two-way paging, and it will add more applications as they are available.
“It’s a great market and not too many people are in it yet,” Spears said.
One heavy hitter in the space is Aether Systems Inc., about which the MobileLogic chief executive offered this assessment:
“The key difference is that Aether is going after global domination, from consumer to enterprise, and I am awe struck by its ability to raise capital. We are very focused on enterprise customers,” he said.
“Acquisition of our core platform has been our major focus for the last several months. There are no data networks in Europe today, but we will probably buy a professional services company in London early next year and begin to test the waters.”
MobileLogic has partnership arrangements with companies including AT&T Wireless Services Inc., through which it obtained 30 of its 35 virtual private network customers. The company is in negotiations with Motient Corp., formerly American Mobile Satellite Corp., for a partnering relationship. It also has arrangements with Ericsson Inc., IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., BellSouth Wireless Data, Verizon Wireless, Sierra Wireless and Wireless Knowledge, among others.
“We have some proprietary software. We have built a thin client interface to the VPN that lets the user drag and drop from a PC. And they can use it as a diagnostics dashboard,” Spears said.
“We have a four-factor authentication of the user and have developed an IP (Internet Protocol) address proxy. We host the applications, not the content. It’s a way for enterprises to let outsourced providers host content without storing data outside the LAN.”
Any application started on a wireless device can be completed, whether or not the user is near or in the presence of the network, he added.
“[Chief information officers] can do version control of applications today, but they want to be able to do this with mobile devices,” Spears said.
MobileLogic is working on its technology at its research laboratory in Denver. However, limited bandwidth, which is outside of its control, is the single biggest obstacle to enhancements it hopes to be able to offer in the future.
“Today, you must reduce capacity by the amount needed for security in the Wireless VPN. While I am skeptical about video to the enterprise, broadband will help increase security while maintaining a rich availability of content,” Spears said.
Metricom’s next-generation Ricochet service “will be the first opportunity to experience the (wireless) broadband opportunity, to see its speed and cost,” he added.
By contrast, carriers like Sprint PCS and Nextel Communications Inc., “could end up knocking other customers off their networks because they are having a hard time with capacity.”
