Framingham company breaks the apps barrier

It’s not too often that a company’s concept can be attributed to a 6-year-old, but such is the case with OpenMobile World Wide Inc., a Framingham-based compatibility software firm.   At Thanksgiving in 2010, Emma Angelo, the 6-year-old granddaughter of OpenMobile’s co-founder and CEO Robert F. Angelo, and her cousin and brother, Harry Zajac and Luke Angelo, were playing games on their parents’ smartphones in Robert Angelo’s living room

Emma was frustrated because she didn’t have access to the same games on one of her parents’ smartphones as her brother Harry did on his. Emma quickly sought out her grandfather and asked, “Papa, how come I can’t get the same apps on my phone that Harry has on his?”

After pausing for a minute, Angelo responded, “You know Em, I think we can.” And thus began OpenMobile.

Earlier this month, the company announced that its Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) technology makes all 300,000-plus Android apps portable to non-Android operating systems.

At the recently concluded 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, OpenMobile demonstrated Android apps performing flawlessly on tablets, set top boxes, TVs, netbooks and more.

OpenMobile created its ACL to unlock all Android apps and make them portable to other operating systems.

Currently, these 300,000 applications are only available in the Android operating system, leaving behind the 40-plus competing operating systems.

OpenMobile’s ACL enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to break the apps barrier and ship their devices with a powerful app ecosystem.

For the first time ever, OEMs can choose any device, any operating system and launch with a robust apps environment, said Angelo.

OpenMobile’s co-founders and co-owners are Angelo and Nachi Junankar. Started in December 2010 and located at 175 Crossing Blvd., the company employs 28 and has operations in China, India and Finland. Its website is OpenMobileWW.com.

A Framingham resident, Angelo recently discussed the company with Daily News staff writer Bob Tremblay.

QUESTION: Why did you choose your current locale?

ANSWER: Having operated previous technology companies in MetroWest, I wanted to take advantage of the local community and draw upon my known pool of engineering and technology talent.

Framingham has long been a pool of great high tech resources. It is close enough to Boston to garner many talented tech resources from the massive base of engineering college graduates and has hence become the connector to so many MetroWest-based high-tech companies.

Q: What did you do before you started this business?

A: I am a serial entrepreneur and an expert in compatibility. Once responsible for the team that opened the global IBM PC compatibility clone world at Phoenix Technologies Ltd. and building that into a public company, I then dove into the laptop/notebook compatibility market with OEMs at SystemSoft Corp. in Natick. I drove that to be a public company as well with a global customer base (another MetroWest technology success story).

Taking that passion for compatibility to the next step meant addressing the consumer device and embedded markets, hence the creation of OpenMobile and its ACL technology.

OpenMobile again is creating a global market for its technology as I venture back to Asia and Europe to reignite many of those same OEM relationships I have built throughout my career.

Q: Is this your first business?

A: I am responsible for leading several other local technology success stories including SystemSoft and Phoenix Technologies.

In addition, I was responsible for a corporate turnaround. Mediabridge was a content management company in Acton with a $17 million valuation. I took control as CEO and turned the company around, selling it in three years for more than $280 million.

Q: What does your company do?

A: Today’s consumer device market has become a completely apps-driven market. Consumers love apps and look for them across many of their mobile devices — smartphones, tablets, eReaders, etc.

Apple introduced 300,000 apps on their devices and Android followed suit offering 250,000 apps. The combination of the two created what we call the “pinch pipe”, pinching out the other device makers and operating systems wanting to compete in the mobile device playing field.

The bottom line, as examplified with the failure of the HP Touchpad and the RIM playbook, is that new mobile devices simply cannot launch effectively without access to a huge app ecosystem. OpenMobile believes in the simple mantra “hundreds of thousands of Apps bring millions of users,” Enter, OpenMobile.

Our goal is to have all the devices have access to all of the apps. This is a seminal idea and has the power to change the trajectory of the global mobile marketplace, essentially leveling the mobile device playing field.

The creation of ACL allows hundreds of thousands of Android apps to run seamlessly on other operating systems and device platforms. Suddenly device manufacturers can choose their device, choose their operating system and ship with access to the 300,000-plus Android apps. Consumers benefit on Day One.

The original concept for the business:

Q: What makes you different from the competition?

A: OpenMobile has developed the only compatibility layer that actually takes the Android run time and makes it portable to non-Android devices. This is not a virtualization; OpenMobile’s ACL leverages the actual Android virtual machine and makes it run transparently in the native environment. This is a much deeper and pure engineering integration that provides seamless integration, allows every app to appear as though it was created for the target operating system you are running and provides exactly the same performance as though it were running on a similar Android platform.

Q: What is the price of your product?

A: OpenMobile follows a traditional OEM licensing model by charging an up-front fee for development, and an incremental per device fee based on the volume produced by the OEM.

Today’s volumes in the markets served are enormous. One of our targets, for instance, could be Nokia or Samsung. They are rumored to be producing a new smartphone with a Windows or Tizen operating system platform, a perfect match for OpenMobile’s ACL technology. They each produce about 89 million units a quarter or about 1 million a day, so when you do the math you realize the potential for this market.

Q: Any news to report?

A: OpenMobile is preparing for the Mobile World Congress, a mobile technology show in Barcelona, Spain, running from Feb. 27 to March 1. OpenMobile is planning important announcements at the congress.