iPass aims for mobile cloud service platform

iPass has staked its claim to most laptop and smartphone platforms with the introduction of enterprise iPhone and Nokia S60 clients on Tuesday, but the mobile network aggregator now aims to become a platform for other vendors' services.

The company's user authentication, accounting and billing platform lets enterprises buy one account for access to many Wi-Fi, 3G, broadband and dial-up networks around the world. This simplifies the process of getting on the Internet for travelers and solves the problem of how to pay for that access at the enterprise level, according to President and CEO Evan Kaplan. Accounts are centrally managed by the enterprise.

The company now wants to use the same back-end system as a platform for related applications, Kaplan said. This could leverage the client interface for easy access to applications and take advantage of a cloud-based back-end infrastructure to get those capabilities out to the user. There could be one virtual button for each application.

"You're in this one place, where you've launched your connection ... and now, what else should you be doing from it? What common stuff?" Kaplan said. "Other people have to be able to integrate to our platform to take advantage of that broadband connection."

The third parties wouldn't be using just the Internet connection but also the authentication and security mechanisms built into iPass, he said. Meanwhile, IT managers would be able to manage policies for all these third-party applications through the same back-end interface.

The integrated functions might include collaboration, security and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol), including an enterprise softphone application, Kaplan said. The providers of those tools might integrate them into iPass using an API (application programming interface), as do developers who work with Salesforce.com's AppExchange program.

It's a long-term vision, which Kaplan believes will take about two years to flesh out but could make iPass a more essential service for its core market of large enterprises. Today, the company differentiates itself through its relationships with a wide range of carriers and ISPs around the world, and it thrives on fragmentation, Kaplan said. That fragmentation among many types of networks is unlikely to go away tomorrow, but if ubiquitous Internet access from two or three service providers became a reality, iPass would have less to do for its customers.

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