Orange Mail Enterprise Service is today announced as part of the Orange Business Services portfolio. Orange Mail Enterprise is a groundbreaking solution that is significantly more affordable than existing ‘push-email’ services and available on a wide range of Signature devices.

Orange Mail Enterprise Service is designed for companies that have their own email server. A fully featured ‘push-email’ service, it combines real-time email delivery with the ability to view attachments, synchronise calendar and contacts and manage your inbox remotely.

With Orange Mail, Orange’s strategy is to ‘democratise’ mobile email, driving widespread adoption and making mobile email as popular and accessible as SMS.

“Today, only around 10% of SMEs use mobile email and it’s often seen as an expensive business tool reserved for senior executives in the company. Our research indicates that this limited uptake is due to barriers such as cost, complexity and the need for specific devices,” says Philippe Bernard, EVP, Orange Business Solutions. “With Orange Mail, we will break down these barriers for SMEs whilst also providing an affordable alternative for large corporations. Within three years, we believe, it will be unusual to encounter a business user who doesn’t have some form of mobile email.”

Orange Mail Enterprise Service will launch in phases across the Orange footprint. Beginning with smartphones and PDAs, the current device range includes eight Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Orange SPV Signature Devices (with many legacy devices also compliant). This will expand to embrace lower cost handsets as rollout accelerates. In addition Orange will increase its business device portfolio to include Chinese partner AMOI.

“Our aim is to open up mobile email to a much wider base of business users across all size of company, transforming how many customers add email to their existing voice service with Orange,” says Philippe Bernard. “With Orange Mail we are addressing all the barriers to entry and making the solution simple to understand and purchase. We will transform perceptions of mobile email from a ‘premium’ service for senior executives to an affordable option for all employees,” he adds.

The key elements that set Orange Mail apart: -

Device range
A broad and growing range of both voice and data centric devices. The eight Signature devices which will support Orange Mail at launch are:

Orange SPV: C600, M3000, M3100 and C700
Sony Ericsson: M600i and P990i
Nokia: E61 and E50

Device launch timings and availability will vary by country.

Signature Devices feature a specially customised Orange Homescreen with a specific icons giving business users one click access to key business applications. By adding the Orange Mail icon to the homescreen Orange ensures quick and easy access to email.

Cost
Over 24 months, Orange Mail TCO is expected to be around 40% less than that of established mobile email solutions on the market today. The cost comprises an affordable flat rate monthly fee, limited or no upfront installation cost and low cost or fully subsidised device.

Implementation
Orange Mail provides a full service package with support for initial self installation, a hotline for end users and on site support for dedicated offers. CD installation ensures straightforward set up without the need for technical skills.

Security
Orange Mail includes comprehensive device management allowing devices to be locked or wiped if mislaid and features end-to-end AES encryption.

“Orange’s new mobile email strategy will not only offer increased choice to customers, but also help to drive awareness of mobile email across the wider market,” comments Nick McQuire, senior analyst, Yankee Group. “Whilst existing players like RIM (BlackBerry) and Microsoft are active in the enterprise market, Orange is also pursuing those companies who are not necessarily convinced yet of the benefits offered by mobile email. The affordable pricing, customer support and range of devices Orange is offering will be key advantages for this audience.”

Roll-out across Orange’s European footprint begins this month in Romania with France following in October. Later in the year Orange Mail will be rolled out in Slovakia, Poland and Belgium, with Spain and UK launching in early 2007.

Orange Mail will supplement Orange’s existing BlackBerry and Microsoft push email options to provide the broadest choice of mobile email solutions available from any operator, covering all market segments and user requirements.

UK-based handset provider Emblaze has launch a free push email and personal information management (PIM) service.

emoze Personal Edition, which is a freely available as a handset client currently works with any Microsoft Mobile or Symbian device with a GPRS/3G data connection, and allows access to Microsoft Outlook and POP3 online email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo! and Gmail.

Within months, emoze will be available for Corporate Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes Domino servers, the company said.

Emblaze claims the technology itself is built to support any mobile device, which at present coversl Microsoft PocketPC or Symbian devices, but in the future will cover the vast majority of remaining mobile devices. Over the next few months support will be expanded to include Palm devices and MacOS and Linux platforms.

emoze automatically pushes your emails and PIM data to your phone as soon as it is sent to you without you having to pro-actively connect to a service every time you want to send or receive, effectively going head to head with the likes of the BlackBerry.

Eli Reifman, Emblaze’s chief executive said: “We strongly believe that mobile email communication should become a commodity and not a niche application that costs a fortune for the lucky few that have the resources. Less than 5 per cent of global mobile users have access to mobile email today.”

UK carrier British Telecom today revealed that it has enlisted mobile messaging and content platform provider, fastmobile, to trial mobile messaging services.

Later this month, fastmobile will deploy its “fmX” suite of technologies within BT’s core network. The suite will allow BT to pilot a fixed mobile convergence-based instant messaging system via its mobile virtual network operation (MVNO), BT Mobile.

The instant messaging service will integrate SMS, MMS, email, presence, instant messaging and push services on a client that will be installed on handsets.

BT has been driving its fixed mobile convergence strategy with the launch of BT Fusion, introduced last year. Fusion delivers converged services over Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), with users able to make fixed line calls from their cellular phone at home using a Bluetooth-enabled hub, and cellular calls outside the home using Vodafone’s GSM/GPRS network.

A wifi version of Fusion is expected later this year when handsets become readily available.

The operator has said that Weekly customer connections for BT Fusion reached over 2,000 for the week ending February 3, 2006, bringing the total number of Fusion customers to over 13,000.