Wireless Grids nears SU launch

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Feb 8, 2008 by Tampone, Kevin

SYRACUSE - It's near impossible to take a lap around the Syracuse University .Quad without seeing earbuds slinking out of jackets.

Never mind the furiously swirling thumbs tapping out hundreds of text messages or the styluses organizing their owners' lives on PDAs.

For the leaders of a local startup company, it's the perfect place to launch new software that could help that cacophony of gadgets work together in a seamless, technological symphony.

The startup, Syracuse-based Wireless Grids Corp., will begin testing its first software product on the Syracuse University (SU) campus Feb. 10. Students in the Arts Adventure Learning Community in the Boland Hall dorm will be the company's first guinea pigs.

The software, called Innovaticus, helps multiple wireless and wired devices talk to each other. So, for example, a student could use an iPhone to grab photos stored on a desktop computer and then send them to friends, print them remotely, or move them to another device.

Of course, the most exciting part of the upcoming test is what Wireless Grids hasn't even envisioned.

"[Students] will start using this grid as their personal operating system in ways that are impossible for us to think about," says

Norman Lewis, chief strategy officer. "The key point for the future is it really becomes a platform that people can innovate on top of."

The company plans to gather plenty of feedback from students throughout the SU test, and during a similar one planned for the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. The SU test will last for several months

In addition to being test beds, both universities are among Wireless Grids' first paying customers, although company leaders declined to discuss terms of the deals.

Wireless Grids formed in 2004 based on the work of a public-private research initiative sponsored by the National Science Foundation. SU, Boston University, Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Hitachi, Cisco Systems, Novell, and BT Group are partners in the initiative.

The company's founder, Lee McKnight, is a professor at SU and one of the leaders of the research project. The firm employs 10, including three in the United Kingdom.

McKnight says Wireless Grids is in talks with other universities across the country on further software deployments. He expects software sales to generate several million dollars in 2008.

Financing

To date, more than $1 million in angel investment has supported the business. Wireless Grids is now seeking $12.5 million in venture financing to ramp up worldwide sales efforts, says McKnight, also the company's president, CEO, and chairman.

In addition to universities, device companies and wireless carriers will be important customers. Wireless Grids' technology can be embedded in devices and offered as part of service packages from carriers.

In January, the company had a display booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. During the event, McKnight says Wireless Grids' software drew strong interest from builders of high-end homes, whose clients may not want to wait until the product is available more widely.

"We think it's going to become one ofthose must-have things for those people," he says.

Wireless Grids plans to apply its technology to business environments as well. Further down the road, the company hopes its software will become a standard for how electronic devices communicate, says Lewis, the chief strategy officer. The grand vision is for Wireless Grids to be part of the entire communications ecosphere from the basic silicon building blocks of technology up the food chain to devices and through applications.

In fact, the firm is in the midst of a joint project with Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC). Wireless Grids leaders couldn't discuss details, but Lewis says the firm will embark on a worldwide tour with the chip-making giant later this year to demonstrate what the two companies have been working on.

"Our ambition is to be inside Intel," he says.