Movial


Movial is a privately held software engineering company focused on Internet enabled devices in consumer electronics and telecommunications industries. The company’s software solutions enable rich Internet browsing and IP communications across multiple devices including PCs, smart phones, netbooks, smartbooks, laptops, touch screen devices, cars and set-top-boxes. The company’s service offering includes device concept and user interface design, third-party application, service and platform integration, consulting, training, product maintenance and support. Device manufacturers and operators leverage Movial’s creative and custom systems integration services, including its Android, MeeGo and Qt services, to help them increase ROI, and to streamline and speed product development utilizing open Linux platforms and ready-to-use applications.
The company was founded in Helsinki, Finland in 2001 by Lauri Vilamo, Jari Ala-Ruona and Jon Molander . The company is well known for having created Scratchbox, a cross-compilation toolkit designed to make embedded Linux application development easier and for contributing its Browser D-Bus Bridge code, which allows developers to build widgets that can incorporate phone capabilities such as instant messaging and audio to the Open Source Community. In 2008, the company was recognized by the Linux Foundation for being one of the key contributors to the Linux kernel.
Movial is also noted for enabling mobile operator Optimus Telecomunicações, to extend its services to PC users for the first time, via the Movial Communicator PC solution, increasing its subscriber base and offering its more than 2.8 million existing subscribers an additional channel for multimedia communication. The company is also a member of the GSMA's RCS and VoLTE initiative.

Company

Movial provides services and software products to operators and device manufacturers. The company's products include Movial Communicator, a SIP/IMS application for device manufacturers and service providers and Movial IXS Internet Experience Suite, a white label toolkit and web runtime environment for Linux devices.
Movial's products are used in PCs, mobile phones, netbooks, smartbooks, laptops, touch screen devices, media phones, car infotainment systems and set-top-boxes.
Movial customers and partners include Adobe, ARM, BMW, Ericsson, Nokia, Qt, Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments. Examples of Movial Communicator customers are Orange, Optimus and Telefónica. The company claims it has the most commercial deployments of PC IMS clients in the world

History

Movial is a pioneer in mobile Linux and IMS client solutions having participated in creating the first mobile Linux device in the world. The company was formed in 2001 in Helsinki, Finland, and in 2003 became the first company in the world to cross-compile GTK for an embedded device with touch screen.
In 2004 Movial launched Push-to-video Phone, IM, and Video Camera in one application on Nokia's first S60 phone, followed by Communicator client products for PC and Consumer Electronics the following year. Movial joined LiPS Forum in 2006 and helped launch the COnverged MEssaging Technology consortium. It also provided an IMS Client to Trolltech's Greenphone for 3GSM World Congress 2006.
In 2007 Movial became the first company to use web technology in mobile user interface creation, and was selected by ARM to create a free open source platform for next-gen mobile applications. Movial joined GSMA’s RCS program, LiMo and Khronos Group in 2008, the same year that Movial IXS Application Suite launched on Texas Instruments OMAP3 Platform.
Movial launched Social Communicator at Demo '08, shortly before Optimus in Portugal "PC-Enables" all mobile phone subscriptions with Movial Communicator. In 2009 Movial announced support for Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset and that it would integrate, test, and certify Adobe Flash technology in embedded mobile environments that utilize ARM-based Linux under the Open Screen Project. The following year it launched a new cross platform Movial IXS Browser running on QtWebKit, which enabled developers to deploy and port touchscreen optimized User Interface code across any device.
Movial established itself in Romania, United States and Taiwan in 2009. In July 2020, it was reported that Microsoft had acquired 60 employees from Movial's Romanian division, and took ownership of its offices there. The employees will work on Android-based products for Microsoft Devices.

Awards

The company received the FierceMobileContent "Top Mobile Application" Award in 2008 and was named an Infovision Award finalist the same year. In 2010 Movial won the "Best RCS Client" award for its Movial Communicator PC 8 Client in the GSMA Rich Communication Suite DevChallenge competition.

Products

Movial’s flagship products are Movial Communicator and Movial IXS Internet Experience Suite.

Movial Communicator

Movial Communicator is SIP/IMS client conforming to OMA, IETF, RCS and MMTel standards. It is available on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile operating systems. Movial Communicator is a foundational component of the GSMA Rich Communication Suite program. Movial Communicator's phone book integrated end-user experience includes 1-to-1 chat, group chat, video calling, instant sharing of images or video during a voice call, and file transfer. Movial's RCS client is available on Symbian S60 3rd edition FP2 and desktop operating systems.

Movial IXS Internet Experience Suite

Movial IXS Internet Experience Suite is an embedded web runtime solution that consists of a suite of tools and applications for fast creation of Linux-based Internet enabled devices. Movial IXS Browser leverages QtWebKit to provide a desktop-like browsing experience on all connected Linux based devices. The solution supports the multi-core capabilities of the latest ARM CortexTM-A9 based chips and has been optimized for the latest Internet devices. Movial IXS Widgets is a multiplatform widget runtime. It includes a set of premade widgets and offers tools for creating new widgets and optimization of widgets for different input methods and screen resolutions. The runtime utilizes Movial's Browser D-Bus Bridge which allows access to system level services and enables creation of system integrated widgets such as VoIP calls and video players.
Movial IXS Widgets automatically track widget downloads and usage per user. Detailed usage data allows for better understanding and profiling of users. New widgets can be deployed to the users via the online widget repository based on their usage profiles.

Linux support and open source projects

Movial is well known in the industry for its contributions to the Open Source Community. Key contributions include Scratchbox, D-Bus Bridge and Octopus Media Engine.
Movial is a member of LiMo Foundation.
Architecture support includes both ARM and x86 architectures.

Partners