MobileCrunch has interviewed Tracy DeMiroz, the VP of Marketing for Skyfire. Besides answering many questions of less interest to us regarding platform expansion, some interesting information emerged.

Questions regarding their business model are of course a concern to us all – transferring all that data can not be cheap, and it would not be in our interest if they suddenly disappeared.

Tracy answered:
As we get ready to get towards 1.0 we’ll be announcing more details specific about that. There are definitely proven business models around browsers, around search. In regards to our differentiators, and what we’re able to do as a browser, we are seeing that we’re driving a lot of search. A lot of browsing begins with search, and it really plays to our strengths.

Regarding the expansion of the service when Skyfire dropped its US-only registration policy, Tracy said the service expanded 7-10 times, suggesting a huge untapped demand for a good browser outside of USA. Tracy went on to say that, after solving the multimedia content delivery issue, the next issue they were addressing was the overall usability of the platform.

One of the main issues which are on the mind of all users of the Skyfire browser is privacy. Tracy addressed the issue thus:

That’s taken very seriously here. There’s no personal information stored about a user, we use the industry standards for encryption, and after each session we tear down and clean up the proxy. There are a lot of mechanisms in place across all of the touchpoints involved to keep our users data secure.

This would be very reassuring to used who use the browser to do banking or visit possibly less “wholesome” websites.

Read the full interview at Mobilecrunch here.

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Skyfire, makers of the full PC Web experience browser for mobile devices, Skyfire, announced today that they are opening up registration of their free browser to all. In addition, the Mountain View based company is announcing the .8 version of their revolutionary product for Windows Mobile. The new version of Skyfire adds even more speed and ease to browsing the Internet from a mobile device.

The Skyfire browser was the first mobile browser to support full web PC browsing, including rich media content, supporting Ajax, Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media, and others.

“We don’t like to think of ourselves as a mobile Internet browser,” said Skyfire CEO and Co-Founder Nitin Bhandari. “Skyfire is a full feature Internet browser on the mobile device.

“Leaving private beta is a huge step for us,” continued Bhandari, “We have accomplished our goals of the private beta – launch, listen, improve. Demand for Skyfire has been extremely strong and we are excited to bring this more evolved product to more devices and users.”

Previously, people who wanted to enjoy the exact PC web experience on their handsets had to sign up on a waiting list for Skyfire. With today’s announcement, the latest version of the Windows Mobile Skyfire browser is available to anyone. The 0.8 iteration of Skyfire for Windows Mobile includes marked improvements.

“Our users love media rich sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and ESPN on Skyfire ” said CMO Adam Sexton, “and based on their input we added the most requested features and improved our user experience. Users can now find content more quickly with Super Bar, and can now easily share that content with anyone in their address book. ”Super Bar makes it easier to find what you’re looking for, by combining URL and search entry in one bar. It also features auto complete, so you can find what you’re looking for by only typing a few letters.

In addition to known bug fixes and general performance gains, the 0.8 version of Skyfire for Windows Mobile also adds the following functionality:

• Better video quality
• Ability to make Skyfire the default browser
• Faster launch and auto-reconnect
• Improved zooming
• Ability to download content
• In-line text entry

Today, Skyfire will begin the migration of current 0.6 users to the 0.8 version and will also allow new Windows Mobile users to download it directly from www.skyfire.com

Via MSMobiles.com

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For a limited time only Skyfire, the only flash-enabled web browser for the Windows Mobile platform, is opening up to all comers (Edit:North American applicants only ). The browser, which now supports Silverlight, will now be accessible to all comers who use the special code “Michael8”, meaning Skyfire users can now watch all the streaming video from the Olympics. Skyfire says they did this to commemorate Michael Phelps’s monumental accomplishment of winning 8 Gold metals in a single Olympic games.

The code will only be valid from the 18th to the 30th August, so readers will have to move fast to take advantage of this advanced browser and finally experience the Real Web on their mobile devices.

To sign up visit skyfire.com with your mobile device.

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