Welcome to In Context

by Ken Denman, Openwave CEO

Welcome to In Context, Openwave’s new blog where we will feature opinions, predictions, company updates, industry news and whatever else we feel like discussing.

Openwave has been part of the mobile internet right from the very start. Fourteen years ago, we established ourselves as a mobile data leader, pioneering the gateways and protocols that would bring the internet to the circuit-switch world of mobile telecommunications. Our WAP 1 and WAP 2 deployments were the first of their kind, putting the basic content and functionality of the Internet into the palm of your hand.

So much has changed since those early WAP days. The surges in demand for mobile content and data services – what we’re calling the Data Tsunami -- signify the end of a distinctly “mobile web” and the beginning of one web. But Openwave continues to do what we’ve always done: build software that empowers our operator and service provider customers to deliver the best online experience to every connected device.

Right now operators face the biggest issue in the brief history of mobility: a shortage of bandwidth brought on by the surging demand for data services (itself a product of cool new phones and flat-rate data plans). In short, the industry built it and they finally came!

If the operator and vendor community can jointly tackle this issue in the right way, we will look back on this difficult time with pride, knowing that we made the right recommendations and decisions to actually capitalize (monetize!) such consumer demand for handheld computing.

The mission of this blog is to inspire people to think about all challenges and opportunities that face our industry. Communication is the catalyst of progress for every society. We want to do our part to drive the communications ecosystem toward a more prosperous future.