Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Skyhook to provide location tech to Dell

By Rodney H. Brown

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Boston-based location technology developer Skyhook Wireless Inc. has closed a new deal with Dell Inc. to supply its hybrid wi-fi and geographical positioning system to Dell’s new location solution.

The Dell Wireless 700 location solution will be integrated into its Mini 10 netbook, according to Skyhook and Dell’s blog.

Initially, two Skyhook applications will be offered with the Dell Wireless 700 location solution: CoPilot and the Loki Dashboard. CoPilot is a navigation application that gives turn-by-turn driving directions as well as local search of key points of interest. The Loki Dashboard is a web portal that uses the netbook’s Skyhook-based location engine to customize widgets for news, weather, tweets, photos and events around you.

No financial details of the deal were disclosed by Dell or Skyhook, and founder and CEO Ted Morgan declined to reveal any details.

Morgan did say that landing a customer like Dell is a big step for the company.

“We do view this as a very significant customer for Skyhook, not just because this is one of the largest consumer technology product companies in the world,” Morgan said. “I think what’s really neat about this is that this is the first time we have seen this new category of netbooks looked at as a purely mobile device. They look at it as more of an enriched smartphone.”

In February, Skyhook reported a deal with Texas Instruments Inc., through which the chip maker will include Skyhook software on its NaviLink and WiLink products.

Skyhook’s GPS technology is now being used by a handful of the largest mobile chip makers in the world, including Broadcom Corp. and Qualcomm Inc.

Skyhook, founded in 2003, is privately held and has raised just under $18 million in venture funding over three rounds from a variety of investors, including RRE Ventures of New York, Bain Capital of Boston, Intel Capital of California and CommonAngels of Lexington.

“We have no plans to raise any more money,” Morgan said.