Start-up Sproqit Technologies has invited users to sign
up for a download of its mobile access software.
Instead of getting e-mail from a remote server, it operates your
PC by remote control, showing the results in a viewer on your
PDA.
Chief executive Peter Mansour left Microsoft's Windows CE
division four years ago to start Sproqit.
The software uses a direct connection from the PDA to the PC,
but had to deal with connectivity problems and the difficulties
of displaying remote PC applications on small and varied PDA
screens.
Mansour demonstrated the technology on a visit to London last
week. It puts an agent on the PC, and a thin client on the PDA
which displays output, while a server brokers communications
between the two.
Applications are supported by plug-ins: so far, the software
only works with Outlook, but other applications will follow, he
said. It is easy to "sproqitise" other applications, said Mansour,
since the Sproqit thin client abstracts the screen and controls of
the mobile device.
The product handles 122 different file types, including zip,
PowerPoint and pdf. "We are device-agnostic, carrier-agnostic and
application-agnostic," said Mansour.
The Outlook support includes the ability to view, attach and
send data files from the PDA. During the demonstration the
attachments went very fast indeed as they were being sent from a
desktop machine with broadband.
The service costs £8 per month for the use of a central Sproqit
server, which sets up the connections. The software will be bundled
with Treo 600s in the UK, thanks to a deal with distributor Hugh
Symons Mobile Computing.
Subsequent versions aimed at businesses will have no monthly
fee, said Mansour, as the connection server will be run by the
company itself. The "group" server will come by the end of 2004,
the "enterprise" server in 2005.
The product could worry IT managers, since it effectively turns
the PDA into a remote control for a PC at home or on the desktop
and, like other remote control applications, it can be set up to
tunnel through corporate firewalls. Mansour's answer to this
concern is that the software can be password-protected on the PDA,
which will itself have a password option.
Sproqit had a financial hiccup last year, when its venture
funding ran out and it reportedly laid off three-quarters of its 25
staff. It "pawned" some of its intellectual property to mobile
application company Infowave and managed to find some more capital
in July; enough to bring product out and finally stage its
challenge to the incumbent players RIM, Good and Visto.
Meanwhile Visto is suing both Sproqit and Infowave (and another
mobile software player, Seven) for patent infringement, and Sproqit
is counter-suing.
Sproqit projects an image of techno-savvy people doing things
because they can. In-house, staff have Sproqitised chat and other
applications, and Mansour says one staffer is using his Treo 600 as
remote control for the audio collection on his home PC/stereo. "The
signal goes via the [mobile phone] network, so it's a bit slow," he
admitted.
Peter Judge writes for Techworld.com