Glenayre Technologies Inc. hopes to leverage the growing interest in wireless Internet service for the company to remain viable and turn around its troubled past.
It is doing so by supporting the growing interest in wirelessly enabling personal digital assistants. Glenayre is taking the lead to make ReFLEX technology a major force in this industrywide movement.
Taking point in that effort is the company’s @ctiveLink two-way wireless messaging expansion module for the Visor PDA from Handspring, introduced last month.
The @ctiveLink module was the topic of recent discussion on a CNBC interview, during which Glenayre Chief Executive Officer Eric Doggett touted ReFLEX connectivity as a primary differentiator to other wireless solutions for PDAs.
“The ReFLEX network and the @ctiveLink together offer some of the broadest nationwide coverage, superior building penetration and superior battery life,” he said in response to a question about competing with the OmniSky solution for the Palm V, which uses CDPD service.
Helping Glenayre are wireless carriers like Metrocall Inc. and WebLink Wireless Inc., both of which support the @ctiveLink module.
Metrocall is marketing a version of the @ctiveLink module with Metrocall service bundled. In addition, Glenayre scored a $20 million ReFLEX wireless network infrastructure equipment and software contract from WebLink, good through 2001.
Glenayre also created a new subsidiary, Glenayre.net Inc., focused on providing developers and application service providers and other content providers a place to get information, shop and download applications that work with Glenayre’s ReFLEX-based products. Primary among these are the @ctiveLink two-way messaging module and the AccessLink II pager.
Developers there can access Glenayre’s wireless messaging application programming interface to develop to ReFLEX.
Other efforts to attract developers include opening its unified messaging platform. Glenayre’s openUMS API allows developers to develop applications directly to the company’s enhanced services platform.
This allows developers to create precise applications based on location or language, different graphical user interfaces and other fine-tuned applications targeted at specific market segments.
These efforts together represent what Doggett calls Glenayre’s effort to become a global solutions provider. The company redesigned itself last year to focus on merging applications and solutions across multiple networks and leveraging open platforms. The new Glenayre looks to provide client, server and network aspects to provide an end-to-end solution for wireless Internet concerns.
While the restructuring resulted in a massive financial turnaround internally, Glenayre’s stock price has fallen steadily over the past three months. Analysts remain mostly bullish on the firm’s future, however, with several “outperform” ratings handed down. The company will make its third-quarter earnings public later this month.
