Cos shed dotcom name after merger

Phone.com and Software.com join a growing crop of companies dissociating themselves from the Internet bust. The merged company’s move appears sensible, especially since Openwave isn’t a business-to-consumer Web play. Instead, Openwave intends to provide software that connects everything from mobile phones to hand-held devices to voice-mail boxes, tying them all to an Internet-based platform. While several smaller companies, such as AlterEgo Networks and NetMorph, offer similar services, the combined Phone.com and Software.com will likely be the biggest company in the emerging arena.

“Openwave is using the merger to acknowledge the evolution of the Internet platform,†says Bob Egan, vice-president of mobile and wireless research at Gartner Group. Robert Labatt, another Gartner analyst, adds that the merger process will be smoothed by a new company name, since “employees won’t be biased by one company name or the other.â€

Unlike more extended marketing campaigns, Openwave’s ads will appear heavily just over the next few days in national business newspapers, as well as in local newspapers in the Bay Area, Seattle, Boston and Southern California, says Ben Linder, Openwave’s vice-president of marketing. “It’s a blitz,†he says. Linder adds that the campaign is a one-shot deal to introduce the new company name, and that in the future, Openwave will likely pursue product-based advertising rather than corporate ads. The current concentrated campaign costs $1 million.Developed by the San Francisco office of ad agency Foote Cone & Belding, a unit of True North Communications, Openwave’s corporate campaign will feature an all-text ad. Linder says that while the company initially considered using photos of devices such as mobile phones and handheld computers in the ads, the all-text approach was chosen because it was “an easier way to grab attention.â€

In the ad itself, big letters read: “A revolution starts with a lot of talk. Followed by a profound and decisive event.†In smaller text underneath, the merged Phone.com and Software.com is introduced and a few paragraphs explain the company’s mission as an Internet software provider. At the bottom, a new company logo, in hues of purple and blue, introduces Openwave.

Openwave will be the fourth name for Phone.com since its creation in 1994. Alain Rossman, the company founder, initially called the firm Libris, but decided to alter the corporate name to Unwired Planet in 1995 when the company emerged from its stealth mode. Then in April 1999, just prior to the company’s initial public offering, Unwired Planet was renamed Phone.com because Unwired Planet “was untranslatable globally,†says Linder.

With the Software.com merger, the companies’ executives decided another name change was needed to reflect the combined company’s expanded capabilities. They chose Openwave, says Linder, because “open†conveyed the openness of the Internet and “wave†communicated how the firm wanted to push itself forward. “This merged company is about open standards and about leveraging the Internet,†he says.

Apart from the corporate ad campaign, Openwave will promote its new company name and mission with personal visits to 90 of its biggest customers mostly telecommunications firms over the next 90 days, says Listwin. In addition, the company plans a new Web site and an e-mail campaign to inform developers, analysts and shareholders of the completion of the merger, he says.