| Vodafone launches push mobile e-mail service |
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LONDON: British mobile phone major Vodafone is introducing a business-oriented "push" mobile e-mail service and plans to market it alongside similar services from Blackberry and Microsoft, which it already sells.
The service, Vodafone Business Email, based on telecom software maker Visto's push e-mail software, has a server functioning almost similar to that of Blackberry's enterprise server. Microsoft's mobile e-mail service is supported by Microsoft Exchange and mobile flavours of Windows. It is expected to be in push-mode soon.
Vodafone Business Email and Blackberry Connect are priced at 28 pounds per month for e-mail, calendar and contacts. The services are delivered through a corporate server with a firewall. The company also sells a pure e-mail version using an ISP POP e-mail account, which comes at prices between 10 pounds and 15 pounds a month. The Vodafone service will offer the corporate server free till the end of next May. It includes a new device management function, giving a remote view of the state of the device to the administrator. It shuts down a lost handset and manages roll-out and software installations.
Analysts find that the two services are on par except for the devices they support. The Vodafone Business e-mail supports Microsoft and Symbian smartphones, while the Blackberry service supports the familiar Blackberry clients, and recently some non-Blackberry devices, including the Nokia smartphones.
Vodafone said it will continue to push the Blackberry service. It said the Blackberry service is intended for larger companies and those established with Blackberry. The Vodafone service will extend that to smaller companies and can be added to existing phones.
The Microsoft Windows Mobile service using scheduled ActiveSync is designed for companies that use Exchange 2003 and Windows Mobile smartphones.
Vodafone UK's director of enterprise marketing Mark Bond said working with Visto, the company has developed a product to meet the both the complex requirements of larger companies as well as the need of smaller organisations and individuals to add easy to manage email to their phone of choice.
Posted
on : Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:20 GMT | General News
By : Anne Philips
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