Sybase Inc and LM Ericsson Telefon AB have unveiled an initiative to develop software and hardware for banks that want to offer customers banking services on their cellphones.
The jointly developed software will be based on the wireless application protocol (WAP), and will not ship until the middle of next year, according to Juergen Mueller, vice president of world-wide sales at Sybase's iAnywhere unit.
Sybase is offering its iAnywhere wireless server as the development environment for applications that will initially be deployed on the Ericsson R380 EPOC smartphone. Development work will be undertaken at Ericsson's R&D centre in Stockholm, Sweden.
The unique selling point of the banking applications will be their "always available" nature, says Sybase SA marketing manager Julie Tomlinson. "A user could be conducting an account transaction in a poor reception area such as Rivonia, lose their network connection but continue with the transaction. When the phone connected with the network again it would complete the transaction. "
The companies are discussing deployment of their applications with major banks in the US and Europe including CitiBank. The companies think that banks in Europe will be the first to introduce services using the Ericsson phones and Sybase software. Mobile banking services on other WAP platform have started rolling out in Europe.
Tomlinson said that Sybase is in the process of forging relationships with key mobile solution providers locally, with the aim of creating a channel for Sybase's mobile solutions.
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