Synchronica targets mass market mobile email

Mobile solutions provider Synchronica has a launched a new application to bring mobile email to the mass market.

The SimpleMail push email solution is intended to allow carriers to offer a low cost, open standards solution which will allow uses to receive and reply to email on virtually any handset in the market.

The service has been designed to allow push email services for mass market audiences, without the need for users to install additional software on the handset, or the need for specific handsets like with Blackberry.

Carsten Brinkshulte, CEO of Synchronica said: “With the SimpleMail product, we have a low-entry product, that makes mobile email available on literally any handset. If you are a casual user, not the high-end business professional that lives on high-end email on the go, but you want access to email, you might want your calendar and address book synchronized, we have got a service for you.”

SimpleMail allows access to email through either an existing email client or a web browser, for handsets with more features or through email to SMS for simpler phones. Email to SMS converts email to SMS for delivery to the handsets, and allows users to respond with SMS to email. The application also support email to MMS, which allows longer messages and attachments.Through the use of WAP xHTML, IMAP and SyncML standards, SimpleMail is able to communicate with almost all handsets available today, from basic models to smartphones and Apple’s iPhone, and also supports most popular web mail formats and multiple languages including Arabic.

The solution also includes Optimizer technology, which enables transcoding of documents – for example conversion of large images to a smaller size to match the handset screen, or conversion of .pdf or Microsoft office documents if the phone is not able to read them, saving time and money on download sizes.

SimpleMail is intended to cater a much wider market than existing mobile mail services, such as RIM’s Blackberry, said Brinkshulte, and the company encourages operators to charge low prices accordingly. A typical premium monthly package, including data transfer can cost as little as $5 per month, compared to $50-60 for a comparable Blackberry service.

The solution is already licensed to Zain in Sudan, as well as operators in Nigeria and Russia, and Synchronica is in discussions with operators in the Gulf. The company believes there is great potential for the solution in emerging markets.

“There is an opportunity for mobile operators in emerging markets to make the mobile phone into the primary tool for accessing the internet,” said Brinkschulte. “PC penetration in emerging markets is low, there is no broadband, but the mobile phone has had phenomenal success.

“Most mobile email solutions focus on the high-end of the mobile phone spectrum, the so-called smartphones, but smartphones represent only 10% of the phones shipping to market. So most of the solutions on the market don’t apply – they will be inaccessible for the majority – it is the majority that presents the biggest opportunity,” he added.