The buzz phrase of the wireless data industry this year is Internet portal, and AvantGo Inc. hopes to capitalize on this attention by introducing a free interactive Internet service called AvantGo.com.
The service compiles a set of popular Internet sites where users may go for various types of information. The service also manages and transmits the information in a fashion best suited for the particular handheld device used.
The AvantGo.com service manages all the computing-intensive activities on the AvantGo Server before sending information to the device, which then only must manage the display and interaction functions, the company said.
AvantGo has partnered with Internet portal companies Bloomberg, Excite, FedEx, GO Network, Homestead Technologies and ontheroad.com to provide Web-based information content, which customers have the ability to customize.
Most handheld devices today require some sort of wired connection to the Internet to download information. AvantGo.com will manage this function. The service is available to users of Microsoft Windows CE-based handheld devices and connected organizers using the Palm OS operating platform. The software comes bundled with handheld devices from Casio Inc., IBM Corp., Palm Computing and Philips Electronics.
However, the service also works with wireless options such as the Minstrel III from Novatel Wireless Inc. and smart phones like Qualcomm Inc.’s PdQ phone. Other wireless partners, including AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Metricom Inc. and GoAmerica Communications Corp., said they plan to extend AvantGo.com to smart phones.
“AvantGo.com is offering important Web content that users can customize to suit their personal and business needs,” said Joe Korb, vice president of GoAmerica. “By leveraging our nationwide wireless data network services, users now will have instant access to this mobile information.”
At the Wireless Data Forum member meeting in Monterey, Calif., earlier this month, the opening session was dedicated to the issue of wireless Internet portals. The main reason for the interest is the industry expectation wireless Internet services will become 10 times bigger than the Internet itself.
The means of accessing the Internet is though a portal, which users can personalize, such as My AOL, MY Yahoo! and so on. The user configures the portal to filter out the information he or she is not interested in and only send what is of interest.
So as portal companies strive to be more personalized, Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association President Tom Wheeler suggested making themselves wireless. “What more personal is the ability to be portable?” he asked.
That point is not lost on these portal companies.
“We want to help drive the Internet to ubiquity,” said Dan Hankins, business development manager at Yahoo! “Clearly, wireless is going to take a huge role in that.”
However, there are challenges. Wireless coverage remains an issue for Internet portal and Internet software companies, as does the slower speed of wireless networks. Steps by those such as AvantGo to create wireless portals to the Internet are a great step, say analysts, but many more must be taken for the potential to be fully realized.
