AvantGo was a Web page / file synchronization

File synchronization

File synchronization in computing is the process of ensuring that computer files in two or more locations are updated via certain rules....

 service for personal digital assistant

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

s (PDAs) and smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

s. The system consisted of a browser client software running on the device, a synchronization server, and (optionally) an Internet-connected PC to transfer Web pages into the mobile device. Users could create a free account and set up channels to be stored on their device during synchronization. Stored pages can be read later using the built-in Web browser without reconnecting to the Internet.

Users could subscribe to many channels ranging from general news to a wide range of special interest channels related to business, education, entertainment, health, sports, technology, travel and other categories. Users were also able to set up custom channels of almost any web page, and customize their linked pages up to a preset size and certain "link depth". These "Personal Channels" were available at no charge.

The organizations that used AvantGo services as a business tool were required to pay a fee based upon the number of subscribers.

History

AvantGo was founded in 1997 - based in San Mateo. It quickly grew to nearly 400 employees and went public on September 28, 2000. IPO price was $12/share and it closed the day up $8 at $20/share - with a market cap of nearly $1 Billion. On Dec 12, 2002, the company was sold to Sybase for $38 Million - only a bit more than the cash it had on hand.
Since June 2008, AvantGo displayed on their main page and on the device web browser that all synchronization and channel services would be shut down on June 30, 2009.

The AvantGo service is now owned and operated by Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase

Sybase

Sybase, an SAP company, is an enterprise software and services company offering software to manage, analyze, and mobilize information, using relational databases, analytics and data warehousing solutions and mobile applications development platforms....

, Inc. It is now a managed ad insertion platform focused on SMS ad campaigns AvantGo - Sybase Inc.