LAS VEGAS-After making a splash last July in the wireless Internet/intranet-access market with a micro-browser software solution optimized for so-called “thin-client” wireless devices, Unwired Planet Inc. is moving on up to “fatter” devices that contain more memory and processing power.
The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company announced it will port its software platform to Geoworks’ GEOS operating system, which has been adopted for a number of “smart” devices including Nokia Corp.’s new 9000 Communicator.
Initially, Unwired Planet’s browser was available on limited-memory cellular phones enabled for Cellular Digital Packet Data transmission. The Nokia 9000 operates on Global System for Mobile communications networks and is scheduled to be introduced on PCS 1900 networks in the United States next year.
“This is a continuum,” said Alain Rossmann, Unwired Planet’s chairman and chief executive officer. “On a more powerful phone you can do more things with more graphical applications.”
“This allows us to grow the market a lot faster,” added Ben Linder, the company’s vice president of marketing.
Geoworks’ influence with small-device application’s developers and its announced intent to be a major content packager for GEOS-based devices can provide a boost for Unwired Planet’s Handheld Device Markup Language. The company’s browser can’t access information on an Internet/intranet server unless it has been reformatted using HDML.
“We needed a network-neutral software language,” said Grover Righter, Geoworks’ vice president of marketing. “To grow the market we need less confusion and more alignment. We don’t want a fragmented device market.”
Rossmann agreed. “It’s very important to organize the market in the mind of the consumer to grow the market,” he said. Unwired Planet “provides a new feature for an existing device that people are familiar with. In the future, all phones and pagers will have that feature.”
“By the year 2000, half of phones shipped will be smart,” said Geoworks’ President and CEO Gordon Mayer. “GEOS provides a rich graphical user interface, power for a larger screen and [personal information management] functions to provide a desktop paradigm-backed up with a lot of power on the server side.”
“We’re network neutral. The [application programming interfaces] separate us from the network air-interface standards,” he added.
In related news, Samsung Electronics Co. Inc. introduced its Duette cellular phone loaded with Unwired Planet’s micro-browser and endorsed by AT&T Wireless Services Inc. for the PocketNet CDPD-based Internet/intranet application. Duette is the third such phone announced for PocketNet.
Jae Shim, Samsung’s director of wireless communications, said the phone will be in volume production in the first quarter of 1997, available at $500 per unit.
Kendra VanderMeulen, vice president and general manager of AT&T’s Wireless Data Division, said 40 companies have enrolled in the PocketNet “early access” beta test program.
