NetSanity brings one-stop publishing to the Web

2000-06-01

As we claw our way out of the primeval swamp of technology, we are hitting a wave of diversification. The move towards appliances and devices may have its attractions but it also brings a series of problems with it. One of these is how to handle the range of forms that information must take to reach this variety of devices. As always, where there is a problem there will be a start-up which claims to have found the solution and in this case it is NetSanity.

NetSanity’s primary goal is to bridge the gap between information display on the Web Browser and on WAP-enabled smart-phones. There are several possible solutions to this, depending on where one thinks the problem should be solved. NetSanity have gone back to what it sees as the origin of the problem – the stage of preparing the information for publishing. The company offers a one-stop publishing solution in which organisations can prepare their information in an agreed structure based on XML. NetSanity then provides an ASP-type that which takes the information and delivers it to the supported range of formats and devices. As well as HTML for browsers and the Wireless Markup Language (WML) used for WAP phones, NetSanity supports other formats including SMS which can be delivered to existing mobile phones and pagers.

A rather clever part of NetSanity’s offering is the preference facility it gives to browser and phone users. Rather like (the sadly passed away) PointCast, NetSanity provides a console (termed the SmartBar) that offers a selection of content – news, sports results and the like. However the user’s preferences are not stored on the device, rather on the server so users can keep up to date whether they are using a WAP phone or a Web browser. Preferences can be managed on a per-device basis – for example, a user may wish to see only the headlines on a WAP phone but the full story on the desktop.

NetSanity is keen to stress that it is more a conduit than a service provider. Its prospective customers are the content and service providers themselves, who can turn to NetSanity to get their message out to a wider audience. The model appears to be working: the company has already signed up Nokia to trial a NetSanity-based service.

The future target of NetSanity is to support the drive towards mobile commerce and location-based service provision. Both of these goals will pose new challenges for the company, as it will not only be the information which needs to change but also the processes and transactions involved. Even if NetSanity succeeds in the short term, it will face an even bigger hurdle later on. Whatever the case, it is good to know that innovative companies such as this will continue to exist for as long as there are such hurdles to overcome. The giants will not be able to do it by themselves.

(First published 1 June 2000)