Closely-watched Unwired Planet Inc, the company chosen by many manufacturers of cellular telephones to make the web a reality on handheld devices, has announced the availability of its HDML Handheld Device Markup Language software developer’s kit, called UP.SDK. The SDK enables developers to create applications and content for phones such as AT&T Corp’s PocketNet Service, Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile Cellscape Service and GTE Wireless Superphone. The Redwood Shores company, along with six others, recently filed the HDML spec with the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) for consideration. It was discussed at a W3C meeting in Tokyo in mid-June, and Unwired is making efforts to move it up the organization’s agenda. Webmasters will have to alter their sites to fit onto phone screen by using the HDML tags, and thus far only about eight websites, including Bloomberg, and Infospace have committed to using HDML, but Unwired and its supporters are hoping the availability of this SDK will get things moving. Unwired makes its money by licensing its UP.Browser software to makers of telephones, and its server gateway software to cellular providers. It has just licensed RSA Data Security Inc’s encryption technology for use in UP.Browser. The company is backed financially by AT&T Wireless, Mitsubishi Electric, Qualcomm Inc, Microware Inc and Cirrus Logic Inc. Chief executive Alain Rossmann was founder of Radius, C-Cube and EO, which was bought by AT&T, Andy Laursen, Unwired’s VP engineering was formerly president of Oracle Corp’s Network Computer Inc division. The other companies supporting Unwired’s W3C submission are Alcatel Alsthom Recherche, AT&T Corp, Gemplus SA, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc, and Tandem Computers Inc.
