Motorola Inc. unveiled a new open messaging software platform called Memos that is adaptable to all networks but optimized for the unique environment of wireless.
“Motorola believes the establishment of standard software platforms will further expand the market,” said Doug Kraul, vice president and general manager of the company’s Atlanta-based Platform Software Division.
“Memos is one such key enabler and represents a new opportunity for participation in messaging by other large and small companies including the independent software vendor community,” he said.
The Memos initiative includes a client/server operating system, development tools and applications. All product components are designed and targeted for personalized mobile messaging applications, the company said.
In a client/server network, the processing workload is split between a terminal device like a pager or handset and a larger, centralized computer. Both pieces of the software platform are licensed to equipment manufacturers. Pricing for Memos has not been announced.
“We knew from the start that we were working in an environment where form-factor size, weight and cost are precious,” Kraul said. “We decided on a client/server architecture where the heavy lifting would be done by the server.”
Memos Server can route messages to so-called “dumb” devices that aren’t Memos Client enabled or even to devices that use another type of operating system.
But Kraul said Memos requires less memory space than other solutions being proposed for “smart” devices and will spawn a new product category of its own.
Several recent software initiatives in the paging sector have been aimed at helping load information-heavy messages onto the network, but Memos is designed to help control the information deluge for the end user as well.
“The paging industry is becoming richer in content as alphanumeric becomes more mainstream and Internet Web-based content comes along. Memo Server’s major job is to process that, to route that information to devices, but you don’t want junk e-mail delivered,” Kraul said.
Using Memos Client, the individual can contact Memos Server to choose from a set of rules-based templates to help filter through the information, he said. “We ended up solving both problems very well.”
Motorola is offering a development environment called Memos Script for authoring messaging applications and economically delivering active content.
Kraul said his company will develop applications for non-intrusive messaging and a generalized content browser but also provides a compelling proposition to attract other applications developers to the wireless space.
“The [personal computer] market is not for little players anymore,” he noted. Competition from the big developers makes it difficult for the independent software developer to acquire retail shelf space or mindshare in the market. And it’s costly for them to develop to the complex platforms that dominate the industry.
But Memos is a platform that targets a young, growing industry to give the developer an economic play, he said.
“This is a large volume platform,” he said. “With Memos, we want to unleash the small-time developer.”
“They’ll feel good at the end of the day,” he said, tucked under Motorola’s wing. Or batwing.
