Skyhook was a location technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in location positioning. Founded in 2003, Skyhook initially focused on geolocating

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

access points by wardriving for commercial purposes. Skyhook transitioned to developing hybrid positioning.

History

Skyhook was founded in 2003 by Ted Morgan and Michael Shean. Skyhook's database was initially gathered through wardriving, when the company sent teams of drivers around the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and selected Asian countries to map out Wi-Fi hotspots. In April 2010, Apple decided to switch iPhones running on iPhone OS 3.2 and newer to their own location database after previously using a combination of Skyhook's and Google's. In September 2010, Skyhook sued Google over the use of Wi-Fi locator technology in cell phones. The complaint claimed that Andy Rubin, Google's Vice President for Engineering, gave Sanjay K. Jha, Chief Executive of

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

's mobile devices' division, a "stop ship" order, preventing Motorola from shipping phones with the Android operating system using the Skyhook software. The litigation was settled in 2015, with Skyhook receiving $90 million in a settlement with the tech giant, a third of which was spent on legal fees. The figure was shown in a securities filing by Liberty Broadband Corporation, Skyhook's Colorado-based parent company. In February 2014, Skyhook Wireless was acquired by True Position Inc., a subsidiary of Liberty Broadband. In 2016, the two companies merged under the Skyhook brand, now under Liberty Broadband, which is a part of the

Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation (commonly referred to as Liberty Media or just Liberty) is an American mass media company founded by John C. Malone in 1991. The company has three divisions, reflecting its ownership stakes in the Formula One Group, S ...

family. Skyhook also introduced a range of products: Retailer Personas, Power Personas, and On-Demand Personas. In February 2019, Skyhook announced that it was working closely with Qualcomm Technologies to bring Wi-Fi positioning and location-assistance services based on Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear platforms. In September 2019,

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

announced changes to commercial use of its Mozilla Location Service, which resulted in SailfishOS location services not being able to use the service anymore. The changes were made due to patent infringement allegations by Skyhook. In February 2020,

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...

announced that Skyhook became one of its technology partners. In April 2020, Skyhook partnered with

Kyocera is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power genera ...

to provide location services to DuraXV Extreme, a rugged flip phone. Skyhook and Combain announced a collaboration in a common press release issued in April 2020. In 2022,

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

acquired Skyhook.

Services

Skyhook offered a

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific t ...

, which allowed developers to create location-enabled applications using Skyhook's software. The SDK supported Android 2.2 (Froyo), 2.3.x (Gingerbread), 4.0.x (Ice Cream Sandwich), 4.1.x (Jelly Bean), 4.4 (KitKat), 5.0-5.1 (Lollipop), and 6.0 (Marshmallow), including forked platforms such as the

Kindle Fire The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tech ...

, along with

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, and

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

.Skyhook SDK
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References

{{Reflist Geomarketing Wi-Fi Companies based in Boston Software companies based in Massachusetts Location-based software Software companies of the United States American companies established in 2003 2003 establishments in Massachusetts Software companies established in 2003

History

Services

See also

References