IXI and the personal mobile hub
The key to the new-look personal hub is that it should be a software platform that is applicable to any device, with the user choosing which device should be form the hub of their dynamic personal area network. This was the major flaw of the 2003 buzz of the personal hub, since the idea was to add yet another device to the user's collection, although Samsung and others incorporated this into the cellphone. The main proponent of the mobile hub, IXI Mobile, aimed to create a host of different devices to support its modular computing idea, but ended up pulling back from its core concept and shutting its software business (see Wireless Watch August 5 2005), concentrating on the one product that had generated real revenues, the Ogo messaging device (offered initially by AT&T Wireless). Although Sanyo North America and Samsung licensed the IXI reference design, the Samsung personal gateway suffered poor sales and Sanyo did not progress beyond a prototype. Sources said that Motorola also created a prototype, but was deterred by IXI's fee of $10 per device to license its platform.
Even in the first flush of interest from the handset majors, the IXI concept was already being diluted. The Samsung and Motorola projects were both basically Bluetooth-enabled phones, but with software allowing them to connect to other devices. This was a step away from the original IXI idea, with the phonemakers hijacking it to ensure that the handset remained at the heart of the equation, rather than being relegated to just another peripheral hanging off a third party hub. But IXI had envisaged the hub residing in a wide range of devices, according to application and user preference, and in 2003 demonstrated its software working with a Seiko watch, a Gamespark games console, a digital camera and a Messaging Pen.
The failure to gain major support for this broader vision, and the backing off of Motorola, left IXI Mobile seeking to compete in its own right in the device market. It has not lost sight of the aim of integrating internet and devices more seamlessly, though the pressure to support the Ogo platform has limited the scope of its vision. In February it announced Ogo 2.0, claiming: "Ogo 2.0 will do for web 2.0 what the original Ogo did for the first generation internet services: make them mobile, affordable, seamless, easy to use, and suitable for mass consumption", as CEO Amit Haller put it. Despite the grand words, the device is really competing with many others in the data-centric mobile world, the BlackBerry being the prime example. The main supporter of the Ogo in Europe is Swisscom Mobile, with Mobilkom Austria and Russia's Vimpelcom being other backers. IXI was itself acquired last year by Israel Technology Acquisition Corporation (ITAC).