After a year of development and testing, Paging Network Inc. and Computer Associates Inc. have introduced a monitoring solution that integrates CA’s Unicenter TNG enterprise management system with wireless capabilities provided by PageNet’s VAST Wireless Solutions subsidiary.
The strategic agreement between PageNet and CA was announced last year. Since then, PageNet created its Advanced Wireless Integration Group, which is dedicated to creating customized wireless solutions for corporate applications.
AWIG has been absorbed into PageNet’s new VAST Wireless Solutions group and renamed VAST Solutions. The TNG solution is the first product to come out of the newly formed subsidiary.
The TNG product is a popular system for monitoring widespread computer networks, allowing centralized managers to respond to system alerts network-wide. The company sold $1 billion of the product last year.
With PageNet, the solution is extended wirelessly, so managers may respond to alerts and make changes from paging devices like the PageWriter 2000X.
With the release of the computer networking TNG wireless solution, PageNet announced VAST and CA will work together to create a similar solution for CA’s Unicenter TNG Fleet Management System. Similar to the computer networking product, PageNet intends to handle the wireless end, while CA’s TNG management system provides a central management point for monitoring the fuel consumption, engine status, mileage and other data of vehicle fleets.
“We understand wireless protocol and device software. They understand data management. This is one of the many partnerships you’ll see PageNet and VAST engaging in,” said Mark Knickrehm, president of VAST. He used the TNG solution as an example of why PageNet created VAST-to separate PageNet’s paging carrier operations from its nonpaging operations. All paging carrier functions, from one-way to ReFLEX 25-based two-way services, will continue to be run by PageNet, he said.
All noncarrier-related functions-like content, software, intellectual property rights and middleware-will be handled by VAST.
The group has three areas of interest. VAST Solutions will create wireless solutions for corporate applications by writing software extensions to handle the wireless routing issues.
“This is not traditional paging, this is software and intellectual property rights,” was how Knickrehm explained the division’s revenue model. “We develop a kind of technical software router that understands wireless network and device protocol. That’s what we do and that’s what companies like CA don’t want to do.”
The other two areas of VAST are the VAST Gateway-a middleware product that can route e-mail to any wireless network and device, and format the message for each-and VAST Online, PageNet’s attempt to become a provider of wireless content.
The company said it would launch the information services this summer. Knickrehm said the content has been compiled, but PageNet is waiting for Motorola to release its Maui pager, an alphanumeric pager with a larger-than-normal screen capable of displaying graphics. Motorola has delayed device introduction until August.
Analysts are concerned VAST is a reshuffling effort amidst a corporate restructuring.
“I see it as an evolution of what we’ve been talking about for the last 18 months,” Knickrehm said. “We would always like to move faster. No group of people are more frustrated than the senior management team. We’re building slower than we’d like (but) … we’re not doing anything different than what we said we would.”
