Handmark is an American developer and distributor of

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...

content, based in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

. The

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

was created in 2000 by the merger of Mobile Generation Software with Palmspring Software.

History

The company's original intention was to sell

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and content for the

Palm Operating System Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) was a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provi ...

, and in 2001 handmark purchased the Palm-related

MemoWare Memoware is a term originally coined in 1996 for data formatted for the Memopad application that was shipped with the original U.S. Robotics Pilot (now Palm) Personal Digital Assistant. The MemoWare website was started shortly afterward by Craig ...

repository. The company's scope has since expanded to include

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, and other mobile

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

and

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

platforms. The company's Pocket Express wireless service offers users access to news, reference and

infotainment Infotainment (a portmanteau of ''information'' and ''entertainment''), also called soft news as a way to distinguish it from serious journalism or hard news, is a type of media, usually television or online, that provides a combination of infor ...

content on

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

Palm Treo The Palm Treo (stylized as Trēo) is a discontinued line of smartphones originally developed by Handspring, which was bought by Palm, Inc. They were then manufactured and maintained by Palm, Inc. Treos had a number of integrated features such as ...

, Windows Mobile, and other

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

handhelds. In addition to the Pocket Express wireless service bundle, Handmark distributes a number of wireless entertainment titles including

Warfare Incorporated ''Warfare Incorporated'' is a real-time strategy game, released in 2003. It was developed by American studio Spiffcode and published by Handmark for Palm OS, Pocket PC, PDAs, Tapwave Zodiac and iOS. In 2014 the game became open-sourced and fr ...

(

RTS RTS may refer to: Medicine * Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim * Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma * Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...

) (Palmsource Powered Up award winner). In January 2008 Handmark and Astraware announced a new business relationship in which Astraware became part of the Handmark group. Astraware was subsequently bought out by its management team in January 2010 and returned to being an independent game developer. In early 2009, Handmark acquired FreeRange Communications, makers of FreeRange WebReader, a free

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

based

feed reader In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, pod ...

and content service for mobile phones and

PDA PDA may refer to: Science and technology * Patron-driven acquisition, a mechanism for libraries to purchase books *Personal digital assistant, a mobile device * Photodiode array, a type of detector * Polydiacetylenes, a family of conducting poly ...

s. FreeRange Communications was founded by Jon Maroney and located in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, and the core technology was incorporated in other products including NewsGator Go!, Attensa Mobile and

VersionTracker VersionTracker was a website that tracked software releases and Software versioning, versioning. It began as a Mac OS software tracker, eventually expanding into Mac OS X, iPhone, Microsoft Windows and Palm OS software. VersionTracker did not ho ...

mobile products. Versions were produced for

phones,

and

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) was a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provi ...

devices,

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...

and

Java ME Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top ...

phones. The FreeRange reader was folded into Handmark's Pocket Express product line, while FreeRange's content service was branded the Handmark Mobile Publishing Platform. The Mobile Publishing Platform was subsequently spun off as a separate company Freerange 360, which in 2012 was renamed to Storycode. London-based commuter newspaper ''The Evening Standard'' launched a mobile app with Handmark in May 2010.

Acquisition

Handmark was acquired by Sprint on April 4, 2013 and became a subsidiary of Sprint.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official site for Handmark
Software companies based in Missouri Companies based in Kansas City, Missouri Software companies of the United States 2000 establishments in the United States 2000 establishments in Missouri Software companies established in 2000 Companies established in 2000

History

Acquisition

See also

References

External links