Out of the ashes of failed Wi-Fi startup Mobility Networks rises a new effort, Azaire Networks Inc., a company with much of the same technology and staffing but with a slightly different-and wider-business focus.
“We’re not just focused on wireless anymore,” said Naveen Dhar, vice president of sales and marketing for Azaire. Dhar was the vice president of marketing and business development for Mobility Networks. “We are expanding our target base.”
Mobility Networks Systems Inc. ceased operations several months ago, having burned through its more than $30 million in venture funding since it was founded in 1999. The company counted as many as 30 employees. Dubbed WiFiRAN, Mobility Networks’ technology covered authentication, billing and security, and allowed mobile operators to offer seamless roaming between wide area networks and local area hot spots.
But Mobility Networks was unable to scrape enough together to get by, Dhar said, and eventually ran out of funding. The company’s assets were sold in June.
Interestingly, Azaire Networks was there to scoop up Mobility Networks’ Wi-Fi technology assets in the June sale. Azaire is made up of several former Mobility Networks executives and was founded at about the same time Mobility Networks shut down. Bill Howe was Mobility Networks’ former chief executive officer and now works as Azaire’s president and CEO, and Zaheer Allam was Mobility Networks’ former vice president of engineering and now holds the same title at Azaire.
Dhar said Azaire’s product offering is based on technology from Mobility Networks, but includes several key changes. First, Azaire supports a range of authentication technologies, from subscriber identity module cards to short message service messages to credit-card numbers, while Mobility Networks supported only SIM cards. Second, Azaire is targeting wireline operators as well as wireless carriers, while Mobility Networks focused solely on wireless carriers.
Dhar described Mobility Networks’ offering as a “longer-term sale.” He said Azaire can profit in the short term due to its flexible technology and selling approach, which minimizes carrier deployment efforts.
“Azaire is a new company,” Dhar said. “We’re in the same business segment but with a different emphasis.”
Such flexibility will likely be the key to selling WLAN/WWAN infrastructure, according to research and consulting firm Current Analysis. The firm said wireless carriers have been hesitant to enter the Wi-Fi game, and have instead partnered with resellers like Wayport Inc. Thus, companies offering Wi-Fi infrastructure likely will find it a hard sell since carriers have been unwilling to invest heavily in the market.
“We are taking a very negative stance on the departure of Mobility Networks Systems from the telecom vendor marketplace,” Current Analysis wrote in a recent research note. “MNS promised one of the most interesting hotspot or public WLAN solutions on the market, based on a tight integration of WLAN and mobile wireless services. MNS’ collapse shatters this vision and reflects poorly on the entire public WLAN market at a time when some observers have been suggesting that Wi-Fi is the next dot.com collapse just waiting to happen.”
Azaire is no doubt looking to avoid the troubles of Mobility Networks. The company already counts one customer-Rogers AT&T Wireless in Canada-which had previously been working with Mobility Networks. Rogers AT&T Wireless said it will work with Azaire to deploy its Wi-Fi offering. Dhar declined to offer further details. Dhar said Azaire has received venture funding, but declined to provide specifics.
Dhar said Azaire will formally announce its launch in the coming weeks and will provide further details at that time.
Interestingly, Azaire marks the third iteration of the original company. When it was founded in 1999, Mobility Networks was called mDiversity Inc. MDiversity sold a technology it called Macrodiversity, a wireless network enhancement technology the company said improved spectrum efficiency by having a cellular terminal simultaneously communicate with multiple access points. MDiversity changed its name to Mobility Networks in October 2001.
Dhar said Mobility Networks retained its Macrodiversity technology after the 2001 name change, but that the technology was sold in June along with the rest of Mobility Networks’ assets. Dhar declined to say who purchased the Macrodiversity technology.
