HTC aims to boost its mobile backup and sync services with the acquisition of Seattle company Dashwire.
The companies did not disclose terms of the deal. Dashwire will become a subsidiary of HTC, which plans to use the new technology to extend its HTCSense.com cloud services.
Dashwire has developed a platform that lets phone users back up data created on their phones to the cloud. From a computer, users can then access their phone contacts, text messages, calendar entries, call log, photos, videos and voicemail messages. They can also send and receive text messages, manage contacts, make new calendar items and listen to voicemail from a browser on a computer.
Because the service backs up contacts and other information, it’s useful for people who lose their phones and for people who want to transfer their data when upgrading to a new phone.
Dashwire’s service works on BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile phones, although it’s unclear if HTC will continue to support all of those platforms.
Dashwire has offered the service to other companies that can rebrand it to offer it to customers. Retailer Best Buy offers it under the M:IQ brand.
HTC said it plans to integrate Dashwire into HTC Sense, a user interface for Android phones that also offers data backup and a service to help users find lost phones.
There are many companies that offer data backup services for phones, often for a fee. Apple offers the iCloud backup service for iPhone users. In addition, new offerings are popping up that let users interact in other ways with cloud services. For instance, Amazon lets users store music online and stream it to their phones.
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com