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The WDN Symbian DevZone... Sonim Technologies ‘Push to Talk’: Adding Voice to Wireless
Instant Messaging
by Richard Bloor, WirelessDevNet Symbian DevZone correspondent (October 28, 2002)
Instant Messaging has changed the way we communicate using the Web, but has
failed as yet to cross over to wireless. Sonim Technologies believe they have the
technology to change this by adding voice to Instant Messaging. This week
Richard talks to Rahul Khanna Sonim Technologies' Director of Marketing about
their product and the opportunities that lie ahead for 3rd Party Developers. - Printer Friendly Version
Instant Messaging has transformed the way people communicate over the
Internet. AOL alone are currently handling 2.1 billion instant text messages a
day originating from desktop PCs. However messages originating from wireless
devices account for a meager 10 thousand transactions a day.
Clearly the Instant Messaging based on text does not have a huge appeal to
wireless users. Sonim Technologies, formed in 1999, believe that this is because
Instant Messaging does not harness the obvious medium for wireless
communications, the voice. Coupled with this was the realization that the roll
out of 3G would be relatively slow so the advanced bandwidth hunger services
would be some way off.
Sonim have therefore created a product that uses voice as the message carrier
optimized for low bandwidth connections such as GPRS. Architected with a thin
client residing on the handset, messages are transmitted through a central
server, hosted by a network operator or independent third party. The solution
allows for several modes of communication, including peer-to-peer, individual to
group and machine to person. Utilizing standard protocols such as the SIP
Signaling Protocol and RTP it incorporates the all important presence information
without which Instant Messaging simply would not be instant.
Sonim have recently completed a $21.6 million round of funding, which includes
a final tranche from BV Capital, which manages investments on behalf of a group
of investors including AOL Time Warner. They are aggressively deploying their
client into mobile platform chip sets, including most recently a deal with Infineon
announced at CTIA. This strategy is based on the fact that operators will not
want to implement Push-To-Talk or Voice Instant Messaging if their customers
don’t have handsets with the ability to use such a service. As part of this wide
approach Sonim have recently joined Symbian's Platinum Program to enhance
their ability to deliver their solution on the Symbian OS and from there onto
Licensees handsets.
This week I caught up with Rahul Khanna Sonim Technologies' Director of
Marketing and found out a little more about their relationship with Symbian and
what opportunities their technology will offer to third party developers.
WDN: What was Sonim’s motivation in moving to the Symbian Platinum Partner
program?
Rahul: Clearly one of the main enablers for our solution is to have the Sonim
client available on the widest range of phone and smartphone devices as possible.
We are already doing this by working with chipset manufacturers to include the
Sonim client, royalty free, in their products. As part of this process we examined
the market to identify companies who were key in driving standardization in
application environments and Symbian is one such organization. By joining their
partners program, which we originally did about 18 months ago, we obviously
gained in terms of implementing the Sonim client on the Symbian OS but it also
gives us the opportunity to talk to their licensees as well as the large developer
community forming around Symbian. When we talk to handset manufactures
that are building their current or future products around the Symbian OS they
want reassurances about the integration of the Sonim solution. One of the keys
to providing these vendors with the confidence that there will be a seamless
integration path is working closely with Symbian, and the Platinum Program
allows us to do this.
WDN: So how does the Platinum Program allow you to practically provide the
handset manufacturers with this level of confidence?
Rahul: Working with Symbian as a Platinum partner gives us early access to
elements of the OS and code, and direct access to development resources. I can
tell you that it has been very useful to move up to the Platinum program and has
allowed us to work more aggressively to move closer to the core. So we are now
available for V6.1, will soon be on V7.0 and then eventually on V8.0 when that is
implemented.
WDN: What have been the practical benefits of the Platinum program for the
Sonim client?
Rahul: We have been able to implement a number of hooks into the OS that
provide better integration for the client. And as we move through 7.0 and into 8.0
we can get more tightly coupled, providing additional functionality to the OS.
This is an interesting path that we are walking, as we are working with other
vendors of proprietary and open operating systems like Pocket PC. So we have to
take care to get the right balance between getting closely integrated into an OS
while being considered open and generally available to all potential users.
However while keeping the client as generic as possible, we do allow for some
differentiation on each platform. So we have abstracted the core functionality
from the presentation layer. This means that the look and feel can be customized
and match the native environment. This also means that customization can be
delivered over the air allowing network operators to also brand the solution.
WDN: Clearly the functionality delivered by Sonim could be applied to a wide
range of applications. Are third party developers going to be able to take
advantage of Sonim functionality in their applications?
Rahul: Our goal is fairly straightforward. We have a platform that we want to
sell to network operators and the more traffic that moves through our platform
the happier we are and hopefully in turn so are the operators. So we will be
opening up the APIs and with Symbian's tremendous developer community we
expect this to make Sonim an even more compelling product. Obviously we
intend to provide the key, mass market, application, but we believe that third
party developers can also add value by innovating further.
WDN: What sort of time frames are we looking at for the APIs to be available?
Rahul: We expect to have a commercially available solution in first half of 2003.
In the first stage this will probably be for person-to-person applications. We then
expect that APIs will become available in the second half of 2003. Obviously our
problem is that we don’t want to do it too soon, when there are only a few
handsets or limited operator services, because no one is going to want to build
applications, but equally we don’t want to leave it too long.
You can find out more about Sonim Technologies at their web site
(www.sonimtech.com). We hope to be able to bring you more information on
Sonim's APIs sometime next year.
 This article has also been published at Computerworld.
About the WDN Symbian Editor, Richard Bloor:
Richard Bloor has 16 years experience in the IT industry. His earlier
work was largely in design and development of commercial and
manufacturing systems but more recently has focused on
development and test management of government systems.
Richard Bloor is the Mobile Applications champion at System
Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.
Richard acts as the lead Symbian correspondent for the WirelessDevnet and is a regular contributor of content for the WDN Symbian DevZone (www.wirelessdevnet.com/symbian/)
Richard can be reached at rbloor@wirelessdevnet.com.
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