Cingular dives into corporate e-mail

After several years of wireless carriers trying to convince the enterprise that they can be a trusted partner in hosting corporate data, Cingular Wireless announced an alternative, hybrid e-mail solution using Seven’s technology last week.

Leveraging Seven software, Cingular unveiled Xpress Mail Enterprise Edition that will satisfy the enterprise need to keep data behind the firewall and under its complete control while giving the carrier the capability of offering its own value-added services.

The enterprise edition puts a dedicated wireless mail server behind the corporate firewall that plugs into Domino, Exchange, or GroupWise mail servers.

The Seven plug-in software behind the firewall connects to the Seven software running on the operator’s network and holds the connection between the two open. The plug-in is registered with Exchange server, and when it receives notice of a new e-mail from Exchange, it sends that to the carrier’s infrastructure which in turn pushes the e-mail to the appropriate client device.

By leveraging the carrier’s capability to detect presence, knowing when a device is available, and pushing e-mails only when new e-mail is detected, the need for constant polling of the enterprise network — which can over-burden the network and reduce battery life — is eliminated.

Cingular users will also be able to integrate with other services such as initiating calls from the corporate directory and dialing out from e-mail using a directory lookup. Enterprise users can use directories for SMS and IM.

Stephen Drake, program manager of mobile infrastructure software at IDC, said that carriers, including Cingular, will need to lean heavily on software providers such as Seven in order to gain credibility in the enterprise.

“The enterprise has, quite frankly, in many cases an unknown relationship with the carrier from the IT perspective,” Drake said.

Traditionally carriers work with the telecommunications staff, and when it comes to data, the carriers do not have a relationship with IT, according to Drake. If wireless mobile access to corporate data is ever to scale out beyond e-mail, carriers must achieve a trusted partner status with the enterprise.

In the United States, Seven software is deployed on Sprint and Cingular networks and works with Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, IMAP and POP e-mail, personal contacts, and global directories.

Seven is compatible with Microsoft, Palm, and Symbian operating systems.

Cingular also unveiled Xpress Mail Network Edition, which is hosted by Cingular. In the hosted version, data stays behind the enterprise firewall but the carrier is allowed in via a secure port.

In future versions of the software, Seven will include contact database synchronization and the ability to use contacts to fill in an e-mail with name look-ahead to reduce character input on the handset, which is not designed for significant data input. Cingular Xpress Mail Enterprise Edition is priced at $29.99 per user per month for air time, with 5MB of data usage; or $39.99 per user per month with unlimited data usage.

In related news, Xpherix launched a similar e-mail service nationally with Verizon, as well as with several regional carriers.