DashWire is a specialist cloud service, that offers online backup for Mobile Phones, directly from your phone, with or without the assistance of a mediate device like a PC. It works with all of the major mobile platforms, Blackberry, Symbian, Android and Windows Mobile, and lets you backup all of your phone info to the cloud, providing access to those backups any where you have a data connection. DashWire recently acquired a whole hep of patents from Intellectual Ventures, Dash Wire’s service is pretty simple, backup SMS, Text, phone state, data on your phone to the cloud and make it accessible everywhere. News today that HTC have bought DashWire, adds another dimension to what services HTC may be able to offer. There’s plenty of speculation that HTC may incorporate the service, as an add on into HTC Sense, and hopefully that will happen. What’s more likely though is that the intellectual property that DashWire owns is another arrow in the quiver, in HTC’s on going patent wars.
“Similar to the established market players – including customers that Intellectual Ventures has recently announced – emerging technology companies like Dashwire realize they need effective IP strategies in order to stay competitive within the surging mobile market,” said Joe Chernesky, VP and general manager, global licensing sales at Intellectual Ventures. “We work with customers of all sizes to help them gain access to our patent portfolio, including allowing them to acquire patents that they can use in counter-assertion to defend their business from aggressors.”
I hope this means that HTC will bring some of the features talked about above, right onto the phone’s they produce, the DashWire tech supports a lot of OS’s, and would be a boon to HTC if they could integrate it into Sense. What’s more likely is that HTC are securing more IP that they think may feature in future updates, features that they have not even thought about yet. Somewhere, in the darkest caverns of the OEM world, the devil is the patent that you don’t own, or legally can’t contest. An acquisition like this is not mainstream consumer news, but the repercussions are. These patents, and the battle that goes on around them, can determine what hardware you can purchase in what country, and it can vary due to the legal system in each country. The preferred outcome here, is that HTC can incorporate some of Dash Wire’s cloud services into their devices, the likelihood is that HTC are just acquiring patents to give them a more secure footing on the world market. Legal leverage is what it’s all about, and it’s a world away from your next Smartphone.!!!
