Wouldn’t it be great if your environment could interact with you as easily as you interact with it? Or, if the technology needed to transmit and receive important information across wireless devices from anywhere, at anytime was available right now?
At a Toronto press conference last month, Classwave Wireless Inc. introduced the company’s new vision and strategy that it hopes will transform the conventional way in which wireless data is delivered and received. At the same time, it unveiled its new software platform, the Classwave Polyphony Server.
With the introduction of the Polyphony Server platform, the Toronto-based company wants to enable transactional Web-based or legacy applications — hosted by enterprises and ASPs — to exchange information and media content through mobile smartphones and the Internet with information appliances and Bluetooth-enabled devices.
“We are only at the embryonic stage of transmitting wireless data today,” said Classwave president and CEO Tom Sweeney. “Our goal, as a company, is to enhance the way we work, shop and play in our environments by giving individuals the freedom and power to access the digital information they want, from wherever they are.”
He added: “In the wireless world, I am, at any given moment, a consumer in the context of the Internet and a businessperson in the context of B2B. With wireless data, things that are important to me in my private life…[and] things that are important to me in my business life, I have access to.”
According to Sweeney, wireless polyphony is the harmonization of one or more streams of digital information, transport media and devices in a single wireless session managed by a Classwave Polyphony Server. The server technology promises to harmonize business and consumer applications, legacy systems, the Internet, LANs and WANs, carriers, mobile phones and/or Bluetooth-enabled devices in a way that transcends traditional notions of time and place.
Suggesting the possible installation of Bluetooth transceivers in supermarkets, sports arenas, subway stations, houses and alarm systems, Classwave presents a technology almost too good to be true. However, Sweeney said: “Bluetooth is not going to suddenly appear all over Toronto, Canada and North America. It’s going to take a long time to build up that network.”
According to IDC Canada telecom analyst Jordan Worth, Classwave is, in a nutshell, a bit ahead of its time.
“What I think they’re trying to do is get people thinking about how the technology can be leveraged in the business space. I don’t know if they have any hard and fast ideas of how they’re going to do it. The reality is the Bluetooth technology is a few years away and who’s to say it will even really take off if 3G (third-generation) wireless networks are able to perform many of the same functions,” Worth said.
Classwave will target four market segments — the mobile professional, the enterprise, entertainment and intelligent environments — with three versions of its Polyphony Server — ASP, Enterprise and mCommerce — each offering the consumer a targeted approach to wireless data transfer.
Snapping his fingers, Classwave founder and chief technology officer Simon Arinson said, “It’s all about pace, getting information now rather than having to wait five minutes to hook up a laptop in a hotel to download e-mail. What Bluetooth allows is cross-border, multinational access if you come near a Bluetooth point…you’ll be able to pull your e-mail as you walk past.
“We witnessed a multiplicity of views on Bluetooth in Geneva and how it is going to impact the consumer — people’s everyday lives,” Arnison said. “The carriers that were present at the conference see new wireless workspaces appearing because of the low-cost deployment and because of the high-speed connectivity of Bluetooth. They think in terms of public places — railway stations, hotel foyers, sports centres, etc. — as becoming Bluetooth wireless domains.”
The Bluetooth standard supports 432Kbps symmetric and 721Kbps asymmetric data rates, making it powerful enough for both business and personal application.
For more information, visit Classwave Wireless at www.classwave.com. For more information on Bluetooth, visit www.bluetooth.com.
