TransMedia Puts File Sharing On Phones

InformationWeek reports that "TransMedia plans to open its secure file sharing environment Glide Effortless to mobile phones. Glide Mobile turns mobile handsets into what amounts to a limited portable desktop. Subscribers will be able to access and sshare the same files available to them through their Glide accounts and their PCs."

According to the article, Glide is a hosted file storage and social networking service that lets users store, edit, and share media files -- contacts, documents, E-mail, images, music, video -- through a Flash-capable Web browser. TransMedia's transcoding technology makes cross-platform harmony possible. It converts file formats including Windows Media Video, MP3, QuickTime, and the like into streams calibrated for whatever bandwidth is appropriate for the destination device."

Glide also offers a right management system that "will prevent unauthorized downloads by comparing shared songs against a database of known major and independent label music."

Forrester analyst Ellen Daley expected Glide Mobile to be "more interesting to consumers than to business users. She said, "The ability to access your desktop data sounds compelling, but what we find is what enterprise users want is not access to all their data but to relevant data."

Daley opined that "constrained viewing and input options make mobile phones better suited for specific applications like E-mail than for more general purpose computing." She added, "The mobile device has not replaced the laptop yet."