Hugh Sheridan, VP of Technology, Broadbeam

There's a new “Fi” in town, and it's called Uni-Fi. The Uni-Fi Networking Initiative is the next phase in Broadbeam's effort to keep enterprise users on the move and allow their applications to move with them.

The Cranbury, N.J., company has been in business since 1988, but it wasn't until two years ago — after several strategic transitions — that the company gelled under a new management team with a new mission: to provide the middleware to mobilize enterprise applications across wired LANs, wireless LANs and wireless WANs. “When you get disconnected from the network and connect again, you have to restart your applications,” said Hugh Sheridan, Broadbeam's vice president of technology. “We have tried to make wireless broadband like wireline broadband — the user is unaware of the network, and it's always on.”

The Uni-Fi concept is grounded in Broadbeam's existing Mobile Solutions System framework for enterprise network customers, which includes products to mobilize existing applications and also create new ones that are “mobile aware,” Sheridan said. Where the Uni-Fi concept really comes together is with the addition of a new software technology, IntelliSwitching, that lies between the MSS framework products and the network layer, allowing users to connect and switch seamlessly between multiple data networks based on virtually any protocol. With Uni-Fi, users get to be choosers. They can connect and reconnect as they please, without the need for stationary, network-based switching.

Putting that power in users' hands might sound like a threat to the eminence of network operators, but Broadbeam is partnering with carriers to resell its software to users. Several of its executives have carrier backgrounds, including Sheridan, who used to work for Bell Labs, along with CEO Janet Boudris and executive marketing director Linda Everk, who both worked for Cingular Wireless and BellSouth.

“Carriers are getting skilled in this area,” Sheridan said. “They're picking up the tools.”