Spotted at CTIA: Orative and PocketSurfer
Mar 16 2005 - 06:50 PM ET | In The News
CTIA 2005 -- While at the CTIA 2005 conference in New Orleans, MobileTracker met with two smaller companies that have interesting ideas: Orative and DataWind (maker of the PocketSurfer). Both companies are after emerging markets with big potential, especially Orative. Read on for a short review of both offerings.
Orative - Orative makes software that puts your phone's address book on steriods. Designed for enterprise use, Orative controls the phonebook from a central server. Did your number change? Just change it once and everyone who has you in their phone gets the update automatically. If you're going to a meeting (impromptu or pre-scheduled in Outlook), the phone not only won't ring, but it will show you as in a meeting in everyone else's phonebook. Orative has very interesting ideas and a big potential market. The software runs on BREW and Symbian phones (soon Java and maybe BlackBerry).
DataWind Pocket Surfer - The Pocket Surfer is a small (pocketable) screen and keyboard combo that ties into Bluetooth phones. It attempts to offer a better mobile internet experience without the bulk of a laptop. It's big enough that you're probably not going to want to take it everywhere you go, but it would be great at the airport or on the train. Internet wise, the browser works better than what you expect on a mobile device. Webpages look like the desktop version (even CSS based designs like
MobileTracker). DataWind runs a proxy server that speeds up surfing, so a GPRS connection is somewhat bearable. Web mail and Java IM services work as expected.
