Damaka Inc. hopes to find a niche in the government health IT space for its mobile unified communications and collaboration (UCC) product, which recently expanded its reach on Apple's iPad and RIM's BlackBerry.

In June, the company made a number of UCC features available for iPad: presence, instant messaging, audio/video, multi-party video conferencing, and application sharing. Those features had been previously available on iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS and Symbian devices. Damaka followed the iPad move in July with the launch of its UCC offering for BlackBerry devices.

Ramesh Chaturvedi, Damaka's chief strategy officer, said the company's aim is to let users communicate and collaborate on any platform using any kind of network"whether WiFi, 3G or 4G. The six-year old company focuses on such verticals as healthcare, government, and education, Chaturvedi said. In a healthcare setting, Damaka's software, installed in each end device, lets clinicians share patient records, x-rays and prescription information, for example. Damaka's solutions use a Session Initiation Protocol-based peer-to-peer architecture. The company's solutions, however, are also available on a traditional client-server based architecture, Chaturvedi said.

Damaka licenses its solutions to service providers, OEMs and other channel partners. A relationship with a managed service provider has helped propel the company's work in healthcare. The service provider offers Damaka's technology under its own label and is in talks with several large hospital systems, Chaturvedi noted. The company also leverages channel partners to reach out to government health customers, he added.

Chaturvedi said the technology's bidirectional encryption dovetails with the security needs of government and healthcare.

Some healthcare facilities are piloting Damaka's UCC offering. One use case: linking an emergency medical technician in a vehicle with a hospital physician. The idea is to provide a video of the patient and relay vital signs, so the physician can prepare for the incoming trauma case.

In addition to channel, customer Web sites and various app outlets including the Android Market offer access to Damaka's software.