It is very easy for forward-thinking industries to forget what's lying right under their noses. Witness the case of Vinestone. This week, it will launch two products that aim to harness the potential of the Short Messaging System common to most mobile phones. Developed at the company's labs in Grangemouth, the TextConnect and TextBase systems allow users to access their calendar and email via any mobile phone, communicate via an instant messaging service between PCs and receive up-to-the-minute database records on a standard handset.
"People want mobile access to their data and not pay through the nose for an unproven technology," says Bob Devine, Vinestone's chief technology officer. "Our products have been designed to cover a variety of protocols and we will apply these in the near future, but in the meantime it would be foolish to ignore a system that is both prevalent and highly familiar to most users."
The TextConnect system works by connecting the user's PC to a software messaging server that routes their messages to its intended recipient. If the addressee is on another PC then the text is sent via the resident network. If they're mobile, the communication is broadcast via either an SMS modem or mobile phone attached to the server by a data cable.
Vinestone is releasing versions for standalone computers and full-scale commercial networks. A pricelist for the modular range of services has yet to be published, but users of the core system are likely to pay about £40 a month for a basic subscription.
Using the software, a user can receive almost instantaneous notification of emails arriving on their base PC and read SMS appointment reminders. They may also run searches on their contacts book wherever they are.
Using the TextBase system, meanwhile, business users can send complex queries to a corporate database, gaining access to updated records, sales figures or support information from a humble handset or personal digital assistant. Because the product does not require a direct connection between devices and will only process SMS requests from specified mobile numbers, the company claims it is also secure.
Vinestone plans to add functionality allowing users to interact with virtually any application on the base com puter and a portal agreement that will remove the need to connect the PC to a second handset or SMS modem. "What amazed us most when we began the development process is that someone wasn't already doing it," says Devine. "It seemed such an obvious thing to do."
Vinestone has also taken a unique approach to the marketplace. It has set up formal headquarters in Massachusetts but kept the real power in Caledonia.
"Europeans don't really care where a product comes from so long as it works, but American consumers only really trust a technology when it has 'Made in the USA' stamped all over it," says Devine. "It might be an old-fashioned approach but if that's what the customer wants, that's what we'll give them."
