With an eye on the future of online services for wireless handheld devices, Microsoft Corp and 3Com Corp have both invested in AvantGo Inc, which recently launched a free service – AvantGo.com – that delivers personalized information to Windows CE and Palm devices. The San Mateo, California-based firm has scored a total of $14.7m in third-round funding and other contributors included Fayez Sarofim & Co, and venture capital firms 21st Century Internet Venture Partners, H&Q Venture Associates and Adobe Ventures.
Felix Lin, CEO of AvantGo, says that the online service allows any Palm or CE device to access optimized information and surf the web from the AvantGo site. Users can decide what optimized data they wish to receive from a series of news, business, entertainment and science channels. Content providers include the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
When a user logs onto the service, via a PC cradle, dial-up modem or wireless connection, the selected channel content is synchronized with client software on the user’s handheld. Lin says that the host server fetches and compresses the required data, which has been optimized by the provider, and pumps it to the handheld. A typical download, Lin said, of 3 or 4MBs of data is compressed to around 500k in size. The server can also compress non-content HTML pages from the web, so that users can search the internet from the AvantGo site. The client software will be bundled with CE devices and Palm OS devices and is also available from for download from the company web site.
Lin expects that AvantGo will make on the free service from advertising and subscriber-based hosting fees. The firm also sells enterprise software for companies that want to host similar services on their corporate networks, the firm sells the software on a per user basis.
Lin claims that his company is the leader in offering online services for handhelds. He says in contrast, the web-clipping service launched with the Palm VII is expensive and limited. Web clipping offers only limited content and no HTML download and costs $9 a month versus the free AvantGo service, which offers access to all of the web. Lin says that the company is also working on versions of the software for Symbian Plc devices and Research In Motion Inc’s Blackberry pager.
