There is a video-tape sized carton on a shelf in Dayakar Puskoor’s chambers, showing a generation-old Palm Pilot (as it was called then) wired to a Motorola pager. Puskoor has very fond memories of this technology he soldered together in 1994. “It was among the first indicators of where one could take the PDA—we used the pager as the wireless network router, layered software between the PDA and the pager, and it worked.” The carton that Puskoor shows off fondly packaged the software, and One-Touch Mail sold many thousands of copies over the Internet. While neither device manufacturers were interested in taking the concept forward, Puskoor’s startup, JP Systems (which was then rechristened JP Mobile) attracted the attention of the NYSE, no less. “The mandate for responding to a trade enquiry is less than 24 seconds,” reveals Dennis Palone, Director of Database & Network Management, Trading Services, NYSE, “and mobility in this environment could help the traders meet the mandate.” NYSE was punishing in its tests and requirements, but Puskoor and Ananth Rao —the other co-founder and executive vice president—pulled off a magnificent victory. “We have matched the exchange’s requirement that our software not fail for more than 10 minutes in 10 years!,” beams Rao. So much so, NYSE’s business was large enough for the duo to seed its next evolution in the wireless software space. “We have remained focused on being a software company, and it has worked well,” recalls Puskoor, who has been recognized by the White House as an expert in the mobility space.

Today, Puskoor’s table is laden with mobile handsets from every manufacturer, that keep pinging every so often, notifying incoming emails. Puskoor’s decade-long pioneering in developing a device-neutral middle layer for wireless email, data and application delivery has paid off richly. JP Mobile’s current product offer: the SureWave group of tools and security mechanisms is now deployed in almost all handsets that can handle email—Palm, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Symbian, RIM, WAP access and so on—and is pushing email from behind the enterprise firewall. What is the difference, you may ask?

If you own a Blackberry, what you don’t realize is that firstly your email becomes device dependent—you need the Blackberry device to browse your email. Second, when your Blackberry pushes email—coming in to you or going from your device—the transfer is routed through the RIM servers in Canada. Aaah!, you say. You didn’t realize that. This routing comes with its own security issues, device content issues, software and device costs, and so on. Remember that nasty incident when a senior executive left a leading Wall Street firm and put up his Blackberry on EBay? As the content on his device was not secure, it was available for misuse. At a higher level, the carrier has to support the RIM platform, and not many do it. Consider the market figures—out of the 50m installed mobile devices, barely 2.5m have used or deployed push email.

JP Mobile has worked around these vulnarability issues and comes across strongly as a data-secured, device-neutral, middle layer “glue” that deliver end-to-end encryption, while reducing the total cost of ownership to the carrier, customer, and the enterprise. Recently, Cincinnati Bell Inc. [NYSE:CBB] announced the introduction of an array of wireless devices that allow on-the-go business professionals to seamlessly connect wirelessly. Cincinnati Bell’s Mobile Office with JP Mobile SureWave Enterprise Server (SES) brings a suite of services to the mobile professional that encompasses voice tools, Internet/Intranet access, personal information management, email and other customized solutions to the latest devices. Business customers can select the Treo 600 smartphone from palmOne, Blackberry 7210 or Nokia 3600 devices based on the needs of their employees to efficiently access email and corporate data, receive on-demand information and make voice calls.

“Our business customers have some common needs for their mobile workers that include affordable and consistent access to email, and their corporate intranet - but they enjoy choice when it comes to operating system, functionality, and device form factor,” says Dave Korb, vice president and general manager for business markets at Cincinnati Bell. Says Leo Chan, Senior Product Manager at Cincinnati Bell, “JP Mobile’s SureWave Enterprise Server is one of the most mature products in the industry today and the team was very quick in meeting our feature spec changes, as we went along in the testing and due diligence process.”

“With our product being possibly the only wireless, push email and Personal Information Management (PIM) solution that supports Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell Group Wise as well as a wide variety of mobile devices,” says Dayakar Puskoor, “Cincinnati Bell can now provide its business customers with a 100 percent behind-the-firewall solution with an additional benefit of not having to train their support teams for each of the messaging platforms.” Puskoor and Rao are driving adaptors to other applications like Salesforce, where the truly mobile workforce can access corporate data on the fly, without endangering the security firewalls.

Puskoor has also targetted the enterprise campus mobility, where large campuses deploying WLANs can simply layer the SureWave tools and deliver seamless mobility without additional costs. “ASPs control millions of business mailboxes and domains, even as businesses continue to outsource messaging infrastructure. We see them being able to upsell enhanced services for email and PIM to extend the platform to any customer device, and gain an incremental monthly revenue,” says Rao.

In another unique deployment, JP Mobile has won the applause of a chipset giant. One of Texas Instrument’s solutions is a multi-faceted platform called OMAP. Included within the OMAP product suite are high-end processors that are sold to a variety of PDA and Smartphone manufacturers to help maximize device performance without sacrificing battery power. In order to showcase the depth and breadth of their chipsets and the OMAP solution, TI’s sales force felt it would be beneficial to demonstrate their OMAP technology on devices made by the very customer they were calling upon. By giving their sales people the flexibility to use different devices depending on the situation, TI would then be able to strengthen their customer relationship by demonstrating the TI solution on a device created by that particular company. “Today, carriers are demanding device manufacturers to install our suite within their products, which is a gratifying growth point in our product reputation,” says Puskoor. Even as an enterprise strives harder to optimise the responsiveness of its supply chain, mobility is increasingly influencing the chain’s information flow. “We have worked with a leading supply chain solutions company to deploy the application over any mobile device, and the solution company’s customers now bring true information mobility to their field forceservices,” reveals Rao.

Puskoor and Rao have driven the company focus to remain within the software domain for truly mobility. In 2000, when revenues stood at healthy figures and showed signs of going up, JP Mobile went in for a round of funds and raised a whopping $55m. “We have retained a significant part of the funds, as we have operated our development from our India offices since 1999,” says Puskoor. SureWave was architected on the J2EE and SynchML platforms, and Puskoor has been enterprising enough to broadcast these platform models to the world. “We have also partnered with channels spanning the entire spectrum—carriers, mobile device OS providers (Microsoft, palmOne, Symbol, Motorola and so on), messaging platforms, resellers like Ingram Micro, and the ISVs,” says Puskoor. “The power of device-neutral, industry-standard software immediately attracts the interest of these channels, as they see no upfront costs involved nor a compromise on their product offers.” With its recent acquisition of PDA Defense security product, JP Mobile has put in place the last piece of the security jigsaw for device-side security.

“JP Mobile continues to seek ways to differentiate itself from the rest of the crowded mobile middleware field. Most of the players here—including the pure-play mobile/PIM vendors —offer AES and triple DES encryption, which primarily encrypt data on the way to or from a device, but do not maintain that encrypted data on the devices themselves. JP Mobile now provides significant device-side security, and adds device provisioning and asset management features usually requiring the use of products such as Mobile Automation’s Mobile Lifecycle Management Suite. It is a good move, adding yet another incremental differentiator to JP Mobile’s SureWave product line, and one that will resonate with the enterprise market,” says Tony Rizzo, analyst at the 451Group. Key security features include full “bitwiping”(including passwords on Pocket PCs), data transfer disabling (hot-sync and infrared capability killed), and for PalmSource devices, disabling of access to the Palm OS debugger. “The acquisition has given our platform yet another domain of flexibility, and reduces network managers’ pain in managing yet another software or box in the chaotic administrative environment,” says Puskoor. According to Brent Iadrola, industry analyst for Frost & Sullivan's Mobile Communications Group, SureWave Enterprise Server offers the best total cost of ownership (TCO) amongst the various mobile vendors due to the solution being device and network agnostic. He highlights the TCO, end-to-end security and ease of implementation as SureWave’s greatest strengths.

The Internet took a decade to become pervasive. In the past decade, Puskoor has seen his first mobile data-driven idea evolve, as devices converged in features. Today, JP Mobile stands alone as a true enterprise mobilility software company. Well done.