3GSM: Microsoft and partners unveil hosted push email service

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Microsoft and its partners Carphone Warehouse, Dangaard Telecom and Nordic retailer ONOFF have announced plans to move forward in the push e-mail market with a set of hosted service offerings.

Microsoft's hosted messaging and collaboration (HMC) solution will deliver mobile e-mail for small and medium businesses as well as early-adopter consumers. The package consists of a Windows Mobile device with an Outlook account to allow users to access their e-mail, calendar and contact information remotely.

Speaking today at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Michael O'Hara, general manager for the communications sector at Microsoft, said: "Mobile phone retailers and distributors are constantly looking at ways to strengthen their established business models, and this provides them with an easy way to offer additional packaged services to their subscribers."

O'Hara added: "The demand for mobile data services from small businesses is still relatively untapped, and we're seeing the emergence of innovative new business models, based on our hosted messaging and collaboration solution, to take advantage of this."

Carphone Warehouse will be offering its HMC-hosted mobile e-mail service - which it is calling the Phone House Mail - to five million consumer and small business customers across Europe after a successful pilot in Sweden.

"We wanted to develop an offering for the small-business market that we could test and roll out quickly, with minimal infrastructure costs," said Daniel Lindholm, vice president of The Phone House Sweden.

Dangaard Telecom will offer the HMC package through strategic channel partners in Norway and France. "By enabling our partners to offer mobile e-mail we are setting ourselves apart as a fully fledged go-to-market distributor for retailers, operators, systems integrators, value-added resellers and original equipment manufacturers who can leverage our international footprint and local market knowledge," said Frank Jensen, the company's head of corporate smartphones.

ONOFF, together with SmartHost, will offer the push e-mail services to a million customers for about a small fee.

Sten Schroder, chief executive of ONOFF, said: "This combination delivers a service that gives customers access to mobile features such as e-mail, calendar and contact information synchronisation. These features traditionally went beyond what private consumers and small businesses could afford and were previously only available to enterprise customers."

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