Wireless urgency

Two years ago, George Davis, president and vice chairman of Aether Systems, remembers banging on doors trying to get people to listen to his company's ideas. Today, everyone is listening. In fact, the phone is ringing off the hook, he says.

That's because everyone is beginning to understand the value of uniting the wireless world with the Internet. Corporations such as Office Depot are seeing the value of real-time access to the Internet and corporate information anytime, anywhere. But executing this is dumbfounding to many corporations.

Aether's name means a hypothetical invisible medium that transmits light waves and other forms of radiant energy that fills all space. That's the company's goal for the wireless industry; Aether aims to be a one-stop shopping center for connecting the Internet and corporate data networks to wireless networks and devices.

"The mindset here is that we know we have to continue to be in hyper growth mode to support what we've committed to the industry," Davis says. "In this business plan, we have to always have a sense of urgency. You're only the first mover once."

A recent survey conducted by financial firm Wit SoundView of IT managers who attended the Gartner Symposium, a conference for Fortune 1000 IT managers, found that only 1% of corporations extensively use wireless networks to access company-specific applications such as e-mail, contacts and schedules. Thirty-nine percent said the primary barrier to adoption of widespread wireless access to data within their companies was the lack of a complete solution. And 80% of IT managers said they would either strongly or slightly prefer to adopt an end-to-end solution as opposed to building it themselves.

To build this end-to-end solution, Aether has been acquiring, partnering and investing in companies to position itself in the middle of the wireless Internet universe, growing the company from 60 employees a year ago to 1000 today. Currently, it can either provide part of a solution or an end-to-end solution, depending on customers' needs. The key component to this effort is the company's wireless platform, designed to serve as a link between wireless devices, wireless networks and content.

"What we want is more types of companies to build to our platform, which will push services back to us," Davis says. "We're doing a lot of unique things to push to the developer community access to our platform so it will start to become a standard."

One of the first components of Aether's expertise is the Aether Intelligent Messaging platform, middleware that ties enterprise and wireless networks together. The company's first major acquisition of Riverbed Technologies added software and synchronization know-how to this platform. Other acquisitions in the medical, public safety, transportation and government sectors have given Aether the ability to target these vertical industries.

Most recently, the company bought Cerulean Technologies, which gave Aether access to Cerulean's PacketCluster Patrol application for the public-safety market. Aether's wireless offerings include its Blackberry messaging service and Web content services. The company's creation of AirLoom - a Web-to-wireless service Aether developed with AlterEgo - gives Aether a presence in the wireless ISP market. And mobile commerce will be another area Aether targets in the coming year, Davis says.

"If you look at the metrics, look for new software products, look for us to continue to develop and build more enterprise customers within the vertical markets and new vertical markets through acquisitions and look for more Aether-branded Blackberry users," Davis predicts.