AvantGo's Software Soups Up Palm, CE Handheld Devices
March 4, 1999
By LISA BRANSTEN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
interactive.wsj.com
Two years ago, Linus Upson figured out a way to pull the New York Times
crossword puzzle off the Web and install it on his PalmPilot. From
there, he
says, it wasn't that big a leap to start a company he hopes will
revolutionize how the devices are used.
"If you can get the crossword puzzle off the Web then you can get the
Times,
and if you can get the Times, you can get anything," he recalls
thinking.
So in 1997 Mr. Upson and a friend, Felix Lin, founded AvantGo Inc., to
make
software that allows people to cram content from the Internet and
corporate
intranets into handheld devices. Mr. Upson, 28 years old, is the San
Mateo,
Calif., company's chief technology officer and Mr. Lin, 35, is chief
executive officer, and yes, the pair take a fair amount of ribbing for
having the first names of comic-strip characters.
AvantGo's software works primarily on devices that retail for about $150
to
$500 and run on 3Com Corp.'s Palm operating system and rival Microsoft
Corp.'s Windows CE operating system. The company has plans to extend the
software to work on all sorts of mobile devices, from cell phones to
two-way
pagers.
Most people now use such devices only to manage their calendars, address
books and "to do" lists, but AvantGo hopes to change that. Their aim is
to
make handheld devices more useful by connecting them to corporate
networks
so that they become as important in the workplace as personal computers.
"What these new devices give people is mobile access to the wealth of
information and services available on the Web," Mr. Lin says. "If you
can
provide people with a lightweight device that gives them easy access to
all
of that information, there's definitely going be a market."
The company has raised just under $5 million from Adobe Ventures, the
venture capital unit of software company Adobe Systems Inc., as well as
from
21st Century Internet Investments and Hambrecht & Quist Venture
Associates,
two San Francisco venture-capital firms. Mr. Lin says he hopes to raise
another $8 million this year.
A central piece of AvantGo's software is a technology, dubbed ABC, for
"already been chewed," that filters, pares down, and compresses HTML
code,
the programming language of the Web, into code that is easier and faster
for
the little devices to read.
AvantGo has three pieces of software based on ABC, two of which it gives
away in order to build brand awareness and foster growth in the handheld
market. The first element is browser-like software that allows the
handheld
devices to pick up data from computer networks. The second element
allows
the data to flow back and forth between the device and computer
networks.
As part of its marketing effort, AvantGo also has entered partnerships
with
companies including New York Times Co. and Dow Jones & Co., the parent
of
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, for online information, as
well
as with other sports, travel, and local Web sites. AvantGo says about
120,000 people download this data at least once a month.
AvantGo has an early lead in the category, but it is unlikely to have
the
marketplace to itself forever. Already, Puma Technology Inc. makes
software
that synchronizes handhelds with data from computer networks, but its
products don't handle Web applications. Still, Puma's chief executive,
Brad
Rowe, says his company is considering expanding into Web-based products.
Another threat to AvantGo could come from big software companies such as
Siebel Systems Inc., best-known for its sales-force software, that might
develop their own ways to get applications into handhelds. But Scott
Miller,
an analyst at Dataquest, a San Jose, Calif., market-research firm, says
that
if AvantGo can grab a large customer base early on "there's no reason
that
the Siebels of the world need to build that themselves."
AvantGo's crown jewel (which isn't free) is server software that
instructs
computer networks, such as the Internet or corporate intranets, how to
interact with the device. Unlike the free product, the server software
lets
users feed data back to the networks and allows a network administrator
to
centrally monitor the devices. It is a potentially huge market given
that
about four million handheld devices have been shipped since 3Com
launched
the so-called Palms in 1997, and big companies are just starting to
recognize their value in the workplace, says Mr. Miller.
Already, AvantGo has entered into a partnership with database company
Oracle
Corp. to develop ways to get Oracle software to work easily on the
handhelds.
"The benefits of ... giving people information in their hands where they
do
their work has always been recognized," says Jacob Christfort, a
director in
the mobile and embedded-products group at Oracle. Because "the devices
cost
about a tenth of a laptop or notebook computer," he says, "the whole
cost
equation of rolling out [a new technology] to a field work force has
fundamentally changed."
AvantGo only started shipping its corporate server product in September,
but
early customers include Consolidated Edison Inc., the New York power
company, and shipping giant Federal Express, a unit of FDX Corp.
At ConEd, managers can drop their devices into cradles and download
updated
information about the electrical network so they can carry it with them
in
the field.
David Hendrie, who builds systems to help ConEd manage the power grid,
hopes
soon to take advantage of the interactive capabilities of AvantGo's
software. For example, he says, he could have technicians fill out
inspection and repair reports in the field and send them electronically
to
ConEd's central network. That would eliminate ConEd's current system
that
uses either $4,000 machines or paper reports that have to be keyed into
the
system later.
"Instead of carrying this thing that weighs about 40 pounds while he
climbs
down into a manhole, now [a technician] can carry something that fits
into
his pocket," Mr. Hendrie says. |
