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If you use a Motorola Droid cell phone, Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) soon won’t know whether you’re coming or going.
The phones use Google’s Android mobile operating system, but as of later this year, forthcoming versions of the Droid and other Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) smartphones running Google's Android operating system will use software made by Skyhook Wireless Inc. of Boston to pinpoint users for location-based apps.
“I think Skyhook has got itself in a position where we’re a fundamental piece of the mobile ecosystem and the mobile market is just enormous and growing like crazy,” CEO and founder Ted Morgan said in an interview today. “We’re in a spot that every major device maker is trying to figure out.”
Skyhook’s customer list also includes Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL), as well as a host of small mobile app developers. The company has raised a little over $17 million in venture capital, and while he wouldn’t discuss revenue or profitability, Morgan said it has no plans to raise more.
Skyhook has 35 full-time employees at its South Boston headquarters, plus a roving workforce equivalent to 400 to 500 full-time workers who chart wifi and cell tower locations for the company’s map database, Morgan said. Skyhook establishes cell phone user location using a combination of GPS and triangulation among available wifi hotspots and cell towers.
“We actually built up this massive database of the location of cell phone access points,” Morgan said. The database now includes 200 million hot spots and 2 million towers, he said. “We handle 300 million location requests a day,” he said. “We know where everybody is.”
Skyhook’s other recent big customer wins:
Dell Inc.
Texas Instruments Inc.
Qualcomm Inc.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story may have confused readers about Motorola's partnership with Skyhook. The Skyhook software will ship with future versions of Motorola's Android-based phones.
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