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Open Interface North America
Open Interface North America (OINA) was a privately owned embedded Bluetooth software provider based in Seattle, Washington and was incorporated in 2000 as a division of the Japanese company Open Interface, Inc., which had formed in 1992.[1][2] Akemi Sagawa, a Microsoft product manager at the time, was hired to run it.[3][4] Another former Microsoft employee, Greg Burns, was brought in as chief technology officer.[5] OINA created and sold Bluetooth software stack products to chip companies with a focus on mobile devices; OINA products were included in Apple’s iPhone, Motorola’s Razr LG’s Chocolate music phone,[4][6] and Logitech's FreePulse headphones.[7] The Logitech deal was based on OINA's product, SOUNDabout Lossless, a lossless audio codec for bluetooth; SOUNDabout had very little lag and high fidelity, supported multi-channel streaming, and allowed headphone manufacturers to avoid decoding MP3 or AAC, which would have required them to pay royalties on those decompression software packages.[2][8][9] In 2004, OINA had a change in ownership.[4] According to Dashlight Systems, which was founded by Tom Nault in 2003 to develop Bluetooth technology and intellectual property, Dashlight acquired a controlling interest in OINA in May 2004 and Nault became Chairman of the Board of OINA at that time.[10] Nault became CEO in April 2006[11] and Sagawa became the company president.[4] OINA was acquired by Qualcomm in December 2007 under an agreement signed by OINA, Qualcomm, Osprey Acquisition Corporation, and Dashlight;[12] the deal terms were not disclosed.[11][13] References
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Information related to Open Interface North America |
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