Synchronica, international provider of mobile email and synchronization solutions, has announced that the latest version of its mobile email middleware Mobile Gateway 3.5 now incorporates an email-to-SMS gateway expanding support for push email to more than 3 billion phones including the most basic handsets on the market.
The new email-to-SMS gateway adds to the mobile email and synchronization standards already supported (OMA DS (SyncML), OMA EMN, and IMAP Idle) and enables Mobile Gateway 3.5 to deliver push email to virtually every handset on the market today. Mobile Gateway combines the email-to-SMS gateway for basic phones such as the Nokia 1110 with an IMAP gateway delivering push email to the built-in email clients on feature phones such as the Sony Ericsson W880 and a SyncML gateway for synchronization of calendar and contact data with more than 1.5 billion SyncML-enabled handsets such as the Nokia NSeries.
As a key advantage, unmatched by other products, Mobile Gateway 3.5 features a zero footprint architecture that supports all of the major back-end systems used for consumer and business mailbox services without requiring additional software to be installed on the device or behind the firewall.
According to mobile industry analyst Strategy Analytics, the open industry standards Push IMAP (LEMONADE) and OMA DS (SyncML) are crucial for the growth of mobile email in the mass market because consumers prefer the low-cost feature phones that support these. Owners of even the most basic handsets will now be able to use Mobile Gateway 3.5 to receive and send email messages, with the subject, header, and body of the mobile email message contained in SMS format.
Informa projections predict 4.81 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012, with the next billion subscribers coming from India, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Mobile Gateway 3.5 is well suited for these emerging markets because it supports mobile email and PIM synchronization on mass market and low-cost devices which represent the vast majority of all handsets shipped.
To facilitate service activation and boost consumer adoption rates, Synchronica has also added WAP signup to Mobile Gateway 3.5, enabling users to subscribe to the service directly from their device. This will greatly benefit operators in emerging markets where PC and fixed-line penetration is very low, but mobile phones are increasingly ubiquitous.
"Consumers are not going to buy an expensive phone to get mobile email. Instead, we have to find ways to enable email on the more than 3 billion handsets that are already in use", comments Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica. "By supporting all of the standard message delivery systems, we have now made mobile email accessible on virtually every mobile phone on the planet."
Synchronica Mobile Gateway 3.5 provides carrier-grade scalability and supports Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and any ISP mailbox using IMAP or POP3 for consumers and Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, and the Sun Java Communications Suite for business PIM and email synchronization. An OMA CP provisioning module enables automatic over-the-air configuration of all mobile phones.
"Once consumers realise that they can easily setup email on their existing phone, we will see a significant increase in the take-up of mobile email services, particularly in emerging markets. This heralds an attractive source of data revenue for operators around the world as millions of consumers swap the internet cafe for their trusty mobile", concludes Brinkschulte.