In a move toward innovation, Cisco, another telecommunications giant, partnering with Intel, has invested over $9.5 Million USD into a company called Soonr. Soonr offers a way to access your desktop from your mobile phone. Soonr lets you access, restore, edit and back up files fro your mobile phone, and from several other mobile devices like PDAs.
Soonr is considered a “cloud” company, as evidenced by this comment on the investment from Cisco:
“Cisco was among the first to recognise that a massive convergence between the desktop and mobile worlds was on the horizon, and that next-generation solutions were needed to advance this trend,” Patrick McVeigh, SoonR’s chief executive, said. “We both believe that crucial business documents will need to be accessible and actionable from ‘the cloud’, or the layer of network intelligence, through a myriad of Internet-connected devices.”
Soonr also has partnership agreements with other companies developing software for the next generation of mobile phone users who want to be able to run their business from anywhere. Two of these companies are QuickOffice (A software company) and TellaSonera (an international mobile phone operator).
Other than letting consumers know that it programs for AJAX, there aren’t many details being released on how the software will work, or how they will ensure security for user data while the channel between the desktop and the phone is open. I see a lot of potential for the security folks like McAfee and other to step up to fill that gap here. Meanwhile, Soonr is placing itself in a position to lead the pack on mobile office innovation.
