One of the grand old names of the mobile industry – Unwired Planet – is set to be revived as Openwave announces that it has found a buyer for the messaging and mediation assets it put up for sale in January this year. After the sale to Marlin Equity Partners of Openwave’s products and solutions in traffic mediation, optimisation and control, and in messaging, Openwave will continue to trade as the revived Unwired Planet, managing its IP asset portfolio.
Openwave has been signalling since at least mid-2011 that it wanted to offload its product business and concentrate on monetising its IP portfolio in mobile browsing and messaging, through the courts if necessary. It says it has built a patent portfolio of approximately 200 patents covering many innovations spanning smart devices, cloud technologies and unified messaging.
Unwired Planet was one of the earliest WAP browser developers, and its WAP browser was installed on the majority of 2G (GPRS) WAP-enabled devices through the late 1990s. (For example, Samsung licensed the browser for its SGH-800 phone, pictured, released in 1999.) Its WAP1.0 and Wap2.0 browsers were the first to be commercially launched, with Telia Sonera and KDDI. UP and its successors also developed early MMS and mobile email products that were installed on many devices.
In 1996 the company acquired Northern Irish company Apiion, and rebranded as Phone.com. It then further rebranded to Openwave when Phone.com merged with Software.com in 2001, and it extended its software capabilities into associated areas, such as messaging, content management and control, and mediation. Musiwave was bought, and then sold to Microsoft in the mid-2000s.
In 2008, its phone software business was sold to Purple Labs, which later merged with Esmertec to become Myriad Group (In the news today for completing its acquisition of messaging company Synchronica). The companies later battled over mobile browsing patents associated with that deal, with Openwave rejecting Myriad’s claims to the phone software IP. In 2011 Openwave proposed buying back its mobile browsing IP from Myriad Group, for $12 million.
That move confirmed a change of direction for Openwave, as it increasingly moved away from a future as a product and solutions company, to one that would trade on its IP asset portfolio.
The company launched proceedings in August 2011 against Apple and RIM alleging breach of its patents. In November, Microsoft became the first company to license Openwave’s portfolio of approximately 200 patents, including several “foundational patents” covering smart device and cloud technologies.
In December 2011 Openwave then appointed ex-Good Technology execs Daniel Mendez and Tim Robbins, both battle hardened in IP law, as general managers of Openwave’s IP patent portfolio business. The pair report directly to Openwave CEO Mike Mulica.
In January 2012, the company appointed Jefferies & Company, Inc as its financial advisor on the proposed sale of its messaging and mediation assets, as it announced it would be focussing on its IPR business from then on.
Then in February 2012 it sold its Location Based business, originally formed round the 2002 purchase of SignalSoft Corp, to Persistent System.
Finally, at its February 2012 results announcement, CEO MIke Mulica said, “We believe our mediation and messaging business units are now optimised for a potential sale. We continue to believe in the large opportunity represented by our Intellectual Property initiative, and we are well underway in implementing a strategic plan to unlock the significant inherent value in our patent portfolio.”
Today’s announcement is the finalisation of that process. Marlin has not made its plans for the assets known, and Unwired Planet has said it will not release further details of its ongoing plans until after the acqisition has closed, which is set to be before the end of April 2012.
So Unwired Planet is now to become an IP shop, managing its IP heritage, with the product side (The Integra Mediation platform and the messaging platforms) being taken private by Marlin Equity Partners. I’ve asked Openwave for as many further details as it can provide about the rationale for the deal, and what stays and what goes, and will post an update when I have that.