Volantis Systems' Content Adaption Tool Goes Open Source

11/13/2007

Volantis Systems, which provides the Intelligent Content Adaptation™ software delivering mobile content to more than 250 million mobile phone users worldwide, today eliminated price as a barrier to entry for companies that would like to capitalize on Volantis solutions to deliver content to mobile users.

ebizQ received the following:

The Volantis Mobility Server is available immediately as a free download, and in the first quarter of 2008, Volantis will release the product under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version three, in the process contributing 1.2 million lines of code, based on seven years of development, to the community.

With more consumers and corporate customers moving toward the mobile Internet, enterprises need a simple way to build Web sites for mobile devices. Volantis Mobility Server provides an inexpensive path for companies to create this content and easily distribute it to the wide variety of mobile browsers on the market.

"Our view, as the leading technology provider in the space, is that the development of the mobile Internet is being held back by lack of access, for enterprises and developers, to the right software - software which can automatically adapt to the complexity of the non-PC device world, and which can scale to support sites and applications as they become successful, across the market and across the world,” said Mark Watson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Volantis Systems. “That's why we've decided to contribute our technology to the community—to eliminate cost as a barrier to entry—and why we are inviting the community to help us build on what Volantis has developed. We believe that for every potential web application in the PC world, there is going to be a mobile equivalent. There's no way that Volantis, on its own, can hope to build out all those applications. The only answer is to set the software, and the developer community, and for that matter the mobile Internet, free.”

Volantis is the first mobile content delivery solutions vendor to announce it will publish its code under an open source license. The decision supports the entry of the Volantis Mobility Server into the enterprise market. Companies can download the free version of the product to evaluate how the solution fits into their businesses. When the open source version is available, they can task their programming teams to build on top of the Volantis code to extend the product’s functionality, as necessary. Volantis partners can use development resources to extend the Volantis solution for their specific needs.

Volantis’ decision to offer the Volantis Mobility Server under licensing terms favorable to the enterprise audience comes as the industry is at a crossroads. Traditional pricing models work well for Volantis’ established customer base, which includes leading telecommunications providers and partners. These customers require support that is covered by the initial software purchase price. However, a vast pool of companies will benefit from Volantis’ technology if it is priced for occasional support and additional added features, a licensing model represented by the free download and the open source Volantis Mobility Server.

In addition, Volantis is excited to let the developer community enhance and build upon its work. The company has long contributed to a community standards process, driven by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), to create the Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL) specification. Web development markup languages that comply with the DIAL specification, such as Volantis-created XDIME, can be used interchangeably to create content viewable on any mobile device. Given the maturity of the Volantis platform, the company felt the timing was right to offer its product to the community.

“The mobile world, and in particular the mobile Internet, has historically limited its potential with non-standard, proprietary means for creating and deploying mobile content," said Matt Asay, a board member of the Open Source Initiative. "By open sourcing the Volantis Framework, Volantis is enabling the next generation of web developers to easily build web applications that automatically render on a variety of devices and browsers. Volantis is opening up the mobile world to the innovation and efficiency it has desperately needed."

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