Amid the hoopla about 3G wireless technology in Las Vegas, Openwave Systems on Tuesday launched a suite of open IP-based mobile services for operators and their vendor partners to scale out as the industry’s infrastructure scales up.
The new software suite, Openwave Service OS, is designed to enable mobile operators to rapidly create and deploy revenue-generating services. In essence, the company (which makes money by providing the browser and operating system for many cellular devices to connect to the wireless web) is advocating development of services in tandem with the build-up of network infrastructure.
At the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) conference, the Redwood City, Calif.-based software provider took the opportunity to lobby for support of its Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) standard from the development community.
“Internet pioneers like Yahoo and AOL didn’t wait for broadband to deploy their Internet services. So, why should mobile operators wait for 3G?” Openwave CEO Don Listwin said in his prepared remarks.
“The Openwave Services OS is a future-proof solution, because it will deliver end-user value along all stages of the network capability from 2G to 2.5G to 3G. This enables our customers to rapidly deploy
revenue-generating mobile services today — and tomorrow,” he said.
The new suite is comprised of three interoperable products categories:
- A mobile services infrastructure, consisting of Openwave gateway
and browser products. - Platform services, which include core technologies such as direct, port
and provisioning software as well as location, notification and
synchronization software. - Communication services, which include email, mobile email, unified
messaging and third-party developer applications.
“The system delivers a complete solution to meet the needs of
communication providers and mobile operators around the world,” Listwin
said.
Openwave also released its fifth-generation Mobile Access Gateway, which is designed to enable mobile operators to offers subscribers enhanced services, including access to time-sensitive information, such as
airline flight schedules, via a WAP Push.
The product additionally supports 2.5G networks and offers increased
personalization capabilities.
The company also debuted a set of end-to-end location services for communication service providers as a key component of the Platform Services within the Openwave Service OS. The Openwave Location Service Broker provides services from the point of obtaining the location data of the subscriber to enabling commercial services with complete privacy management solutions and a single applications interface.
Location-aware service promise to be one of the key catalysts for the
wireless Internet, noted Michel Quazza, vice president, product management
for Openwave.
“Network operators need to be able to easily determine the location of
the end user, end users must have easy control of permissions in order to
protect their privacy and developers need to build rich and valuable
applications which give end users the personalized information they want
based on where they are.”
