Unwired Planet Inc. last week filed a registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of common stock in June, and also announced the first commercial launch of its technology by a Global System for Mobile communications operator.
Although it did not reveal in its filing how many shares the company plans to make available, the preliminary prospectus said the company intends to raise $55.2 million. Its proposed Nasdaq market symbol is UNWP.
“It’s a natural time in the life of the company to do this,” said Ben Linder, vice president of marketing at Unwired Planet.
The IPO will be offered through an underwriting group managed by Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. and co-managed by Hambrecht & Quist L.L.C., BancBoston Robertson Stephens Inc. and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. A preliminary prospectus for prospective shareholders should be available by late May.
Current Unwired Planet investors include AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Bell Mobility Canada, Citicorp, DDI Corp., Gemplus, Hikari Tsushin, Itochu Corp., Kyocera Corp., Mitsubishi Communications Industrial Inc., Paribas, Qualcomm Inc., Reuters, Sema Group and Siemens Information and Communications Networks Inc.
In listing the various risk factors inherent to investing in Unwired Planet, the company made mention of the possible standards war between the Wireless Application Protocol Forum, of which it is a founder, and Microsoft Corp., which proposes to introduce a microbrowser with similar capabilities to Unwired Planet’s that may not be compatible.
“We are currently focusing our limited resources on developing products that are compliant with the specifications promulgated by the WAP Forum,” the prospectus read. “If those specifications do not emerge as the predominant standards for Internet-based services via wireless telephones, our business could suffer. In particular, Microsoft Corp. and Wireless Knowledge L.L.C. … have announced their intention to introduce products that may compete directly with our UP.Link, UP.Browser and UP.Application products.”
However, Linder said, “I think any company has competitors. That is always a factor.”
In the financial disclosure of the prospectus, Unwired Planet said it experienced a net loss of about $29.4 million by the end of last year. The week prior to the filing, the company also announced it raised $18 million in a new round of financing in a private placement through Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Group.
Meanwhile, Unwired Planet announced French operator Cegetel has become the first GSM carrier and first European carrier to launch commercially an Internet-based information service using the UP.Link platform. Customers who buy GSM phones equipped with Unwired Planet’s UP.Browser microbrowser will be able to access e-mail, news, financial, travel and traffic information from their handsets. Alcatel’s One-Touch Pocket phone is the first handset available for the service, the company said.
Applications include e-banking from the phone and a traffic application where users may view maps of Paris that portray heavy traffic routes with dark lines and light traffic areas with light lines.
Other carriers offering services using the technology include AT&T, GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Mobile. Nextel Communications Inc., Bell Mobility Canada and two carriers in Japan are expected to launch service in the next several months.
Linder said the Cegetel addition is significant because it could foreshadow further adoption by U.S.-based GSM carriers.
