Bowman emerges from Motricity’s shadow with D2C biz

Motricity’s troubles continue; the company announced it lost a leader and sold off a chunk of its business. The mobile content and content infrastructure company sold its smartphone and direct-to-consumer businesses to Motricity co-founder Jud Bowman’s entity, shortly after his resignation from the company’s board of directors.
The news comes as no surprise; Motricity has been spinning off products and slashing jobs during the past year.
“While it’s difficult to leave Motricity, I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to lead PocketGear and believe the smartphone application market is poised for significant growth,” Bowman said.
The sale leaves Bowman with Motricity’s direct-to-consumer businesses including PocketGear.com, Smartphone.net, Mobile2Day.de and smartphone application storefronts powered for partners including Palm Inc., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and AOL L.L.C. Bowman’s new venture takes the name PocketGear Inc. with headquarters in Durham, North Carolina and offices in Germany.
Interestingly, this is not Bowman’s first foray into wireless. Industry veterans may remember the entrepreneur as the high schooler who raised $5 million in venture capital to found Pinpoint Inc. in 2000. Motricity is the result of the 2004 merger between Pinpoint and Power by Hand.