Mobile Middleware Shines at CTIA

Mobile middleware for messaging and management garnered the lion’s share of attention from vendors at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) Wireless IT & Entertainment 2004 conference in San Francisco last week.

Intellisync introduced Mobility Suite 6 for managing mobile devices and synchronizing data. The company aims to provide a suite of software that supports multiple mobile devices on multiple networks, allowing enterprises to choose the right device for each region and purpose without having to run different software systems.

Seven Networks announced it will team with Sun Microsystems to bring its mobile e-mail client to the J2ME platform in an effort to reach less expensive devices. Extending the client — which is already available on the Palm OS, Pocket PC, Symbian, and Brew platforms — will help mobile operators offer it on handsets priced less than $150, said Trevor Fiatal, Seven’s co-founder and chief security officer.

VeriSign is using its May acquisition of wireless services provider Jamba AG to extend its e-commerce support services into the mobile arena. VeriSign will introduce an end-to-end content distribution service for mobile operators, said Mahi de Silva, senior vice president at VeriSign.

VeriSign Digital Content Services is a set of apps that form a utility for delivering content. The utility will enable VeriSign to deliver its own content, house carrier content, secure transactions, and provide billing infrastructure and a UI.

Already established in securing Web-based e-commerce, VeriSign is a strong contender for mobile commerce, said IDC analyst Lewis Ward. By turning to VeriSign to provide licensing arrangements and to deliver content from many creators, mobile operators may be able to reach different markets, Ward said.

Also at the show, Openwave Systems teamed with Nextel Communications to deploy the Openwave MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service Center) for all Nextel messaging services. The Openwave MMSC offers a single server for handling the richer MMS (Multimedia Service) or the text-based SMS (Short Message Service).