The Wireless Blog

It didn’t get a lot of public notice, but there was a business passage reached recently that shows what is happening in the wireless telecommunications industry.

There are a few of us left who remember Unwired Planet, a startup back in the old days (the dark ages of the ‘90s) that developed what may have been the first browser for a mobile phone. Back then the browser was called the UP.link, which at the CTIA Wireless 1999 show was used to demonstrate wireless data from a joint venture called WirelessKnowledge. For the demo it was used on one of the first smartphones ever built, the Neophone.

If these names are foreign to you, I don’t blame you. But Unwired Planet and its browser provided the technology for the Wireless Application Protocol and all WAP browsers, which are still be used today. Through a merger, Unwired Planet went on to become Openwave Systems. Openwave’s WAP browsers have been used on a whole lot of handsets (I don’t have numbers but I’d guess most basic phones in the world used it).

The passage? Well, Openwave Systems has sold off its mobile software business, including its browser and messaging technology. France’s Purple Labs, known primarily for Linux software for 3G mobile phones.

The deal pretty much gets Openwave out of the mobile handset business. The company has faltered badly in recent years, with its share price declining from about $6.50 to about $1.50 in the last 12 months. The company obviously is bleeding badly and needed the $30 million in cash from Purple Labs.

What Purple Labs has in mind for Openwave’s browser technology is an open question but it sounds like they’ll make it part of their Linux platform. Let’s face it, mobile browsers and handset operating systems are becoming less important even as wireless Internet access grows. Browsers will continue to be used, but in a behind-the-scenes way.

That was one of the messages last week when Nokia agreed to buy all of the Symbian OS and then donate it back to a foundation for open-source use. Nokia’s vision of the future is not so much what makes handsets work, but what makes handsets useful for consumers.