NEW YORK-OmniSky Corp., a San Francisco-based wireless Internet service provider, has taken a series of steps recently to expand the number and kinds of devices with which it can communicate.
This month, the company began offering support for the Hewlett-Packard Pavilion notebook personal computer and the Casio E-125 Pocket PC.
Citing IDC figures, OmniSky projected that sales of all handheld personal computers in the United States will reach 8.4 million by 2004. Consequently, the WISP said it believes that adding the Casio E-125 to its roster “represents a significant opportunity to attract new subscribers to the OmniSky service.”
OmniSky said it has developed a solution for the HP Pavilion notebook computer that “significantly increases speeds for wirelessly accessing Web-based information … through compression algorithms, which reduce unnecessary data transmissions over wireless networks.”
L.M. Ericsson is partnering with OmniSky on a service they plan to market jointly in Europe to deliver OmniSky’s wireless e-mail and Internet connectivity via two Ericsson GPRS phones that are Bluetooth-capable. The R520 is already available. The T39 is being readied for commercial introduction.
Customers of this service on these phones are able to use the same OmniSky Bluetooth adapter that works for the PalmV and Vx handheld computers. OmniSky is delivering its wireless services to Palm Vx handhelds by means of the Motorola Timeport 270c mobile phone.
OmniSky, which supports the Sanyo SCP-5000 WAP phone, also said it joined the WAP Forum “as part of its strategy to take a leadership role in defining the best possible uses for wireless services on phones.”
