Growth in Mobile Handsets Fuels Propel Software’s Entrance to the Market

Our partner, Propel, has just unveiled a new acceleration technology specifically designed for Internet-enabled mobile handsets such as smart phones and PDAs. Propel is offering a preview of the new Propel Accelerator for mobile devices, which is built on the same infrastructure as the company’s award-winning Propel Accelerator, at ISPCON. It will be available to demo to wireless carriers at the Propel booth. The platform will accelerate both graphics and text.

"The demand for mobile Internet access is growing steadily, so this is a natural evolution of our technology and our business", said David Murray, co-founder, president and chief operating officer of Propel. "Now wireless carriers around the world can use Propel and Netfury Accelerators to offer their customers reliable, fast Internet access no matter what device they’re using or where they are. All that adds up to happy customers and reduced churn, which are magic words in the extremely competitive global wireless market."

The growth of mobile handsets

According to recent Gartner reports, demand for smart phones and PDAs continue to grow. Smart phone sales grew 50 percent in the last quarter of 2006 to 73.9 million units. Gartner defines a smart phone as "a large-screen, voice-centric handheld device designed to offer complete phone functions while simultaneously functioning as a personal digital assistant."

Netfury is proud to have the UK distribution of Propel’s flagship product, Propel Accelerator, an award-winning Internet acceleration product that provides an optimised experience for users of 802.11 hotspots, wireless mobile data, low-speed broadband and dial-up connections. It is currently deployed by hundreds of ISPs and other Netfury users in more than 75 countries, making available an improved Internet experience to more than 34 million subscribers.

The Netfury Blog – www.netfury.info

Well you know this exists because you’re here already. The idea behind the Netfury blog is it allows us to report on developments with the various Netfury products and gives us a platform to engage with you the end user. We welcome feedback via our blog and encourage you the user to get involved in the progression of the products.

The Netfury Accelerator End User Website – www.netfury.co.uk

This is the end user site for Netfury Internet Accelerator. If you’re looking for a dial up Internet Accelerator or broadband Internet Accelerator or you’d like to register your interest in our future mobile phone Internet Accelerator then this is the website you need.

The Netfury Accelerator End User Website For Mobile Devices – www.netfury.mobi

If you’re browsing this blog with a mobile device then hopefully the wordpress mobile device plugin has kicked in and you’re viewing an appropriate version of this blog for your mobile device. We’ve a vested interest in Mobile Internet due to our planned Mobile Netfury Internet Accelerator in the near future so we’ve developed a version of the end user site specifically for mobile devices.

The Netfury Accelerator ISP / Reseller Website – www.netfury.eu

If you’re an existing ISP or run affiliate websites and you’re interested in reselling the Netfury Internet Accelerator to your customer base then this is the site for you. There’s loads of information on the benefits to the ISP / reseller and the benefits of using the accelerator for your end users.

During my morning delete, add sender to block sender list, move to junk mail box clean up of the daily spam I noticed an email advertising beta version 9.2 of the Opera browser. In the following brief description it said,

“One browser that has always been a strong contender–but somehow flies below the radar of the other big-name browsers–is Opera. This week, we have the beta release of version 9.2, and I highly recommend you give it a look. Developers just added a new feature to Opera called Speed Dial, which lets you get to your favorite sites quicker than ever. Check out Opera.”

What’s that? I thought, have Opera ventured into Internet acceleration services again?

Upon further investigation it seems they haven’t but they have added a new feature they’re describing as a speed dial feature which allows you access to your 9 most visited sites. Why it’s 9 and not 10 I have no idea.

“Opera is a fast, fun, and easy way to browse the Web. Opera 9 comes loaded with the tools to keep you productive and safe. Version 9.2 beta adds a new Speed Dial feature that allows easy access to your nine favorite Web addresses.”

UPDATE: 12/04/2007 There’s a demo showing how this works available now on the Opera website for anyone interested. Here’s the demo.