Bill Nguyen, the founder of Seven Networks Inc., called us up to reply to recent comments from ViAir Inc. (see ViAir Wins AT&T, SmarTone Deals) and generate some scuttlebutt on the industry at large.

ViAir CEO Bruce Chatterley recently told Unstrung that Seven's system sends a user's network credentials to the carrier network when setting up a new account. Nguyen says this is a "misunderstanding" of how Seven's software works.

"Unlike the store-and-forward approach used by others, with our security model no data is replicated to third-party servers outside the firewall," the Seven founder says.

Indeed, Nguyen notes that ViAir uses technology that it licensed from Pumatech Inc. He says that Seven is close to getting a patent for its own real-time technology. "Then, potentially [ViAir] will be a licensee of ours.

Nguyen also hinted at some new releases. He is promising a new interface for the latest revision of the Seven email software. "Browse [mode] will be pretty passé," he said. The company will have more details in July.

Any other reasons that Seven should maintain its position on the Unstrung list? "We've raised three to four times more capital than ViAir," Nguyen says [ed. note: $64 million to be precise]. He adds that the company will announce more large carrier and Fortune 500 customers soon.

Nguyen also took time out to praise Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; Toronto: RIM) for creating the wireless email market in the first place. "We have a deep respect for them," he says. "They provided an incredible technology."

— Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung
http://www.unstrung.com