Submitted by on Mon, 15 Aug 2005 12:08
AOL has increased its stake in the mobile phone interface market buying up Wildseed that adds to its longstanding ownership of T9 and forming an expanded AOL Wireless group.
Wildseed was founded in June 2000 and is based in Kirkland, Washington, with offices in London, UK. Wildseed's technologies provide Linux-based mobile Operating System solutions, which include support for advanced interactive games, music and video playback, remote device management, and a 'skinnable' user Interface for both branded and themed mobile devices.
"Data-related mobile technologies are on the cusp of mainstream adoption. We see it everyday in the explosive growth of our mobile AIM traffic. The whole wireless industry is focused on bringing additional media and value-added services to the mobile consumer, and we are committed to being a leader in that arena," said John McKinley, chief technology officer and president, Digital Services, America Online, Inc.
The expanded AOL Wireless division, which encompasses the AOL Mobile, Tegic and Wildseed groups, will speed the delivery of community and convenience to mobile users with an array of software solutions, communications and content services supported by the top wireless carriers and handset manufacturers.
AOL Wireless will be led by Craig Eisler, senior vice president, America Online, Inc. Wildseed employees and operations will be integrated into AOL's current Seattle offices and Wildseed's CEO Eric Engstrom will become AOL Wireless' senior vice president, Wireless Products.
The Wildseed transaction is AOL's second major corporate acquisition in 2005 since Xdrive was announced last week. AOL also acquired Mailblocks, Inc. and Advertising.com in the summer of 2004.
AOL also launched AOLmobile.com, which lets US based users manage phone features and preferences including alerts and forwarding instant messages. Users can browse for phones and operators, as well as shop for content including news alerts, ringtones, images and games.
As long ago as 1999 AOL bought T9 predictive text company Tegic installed on a wide range of phones.
Improving of the mobile user experience will be the next important step to the take up of mobile data services by consumers and AOL now owns some interesting pieces to take over the mobile phone interface. It will be interesting to see how AOL puts all this together.