MobileMe for the Rest of Us

By Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica

Apple's recent announcement to offer a hosted webmail, calendar, address book combined with push email and synchronization capabilities is yet another sign that, increasingly, device manufacturers are becoming service providers offering value-added services bundled with their devices. Nokia is executing a similar strategy with the OVI portal offering mobile services for their devices.

Synchronica has last week announced a major deal with a leading Chinese device manufacturer aimed at offering a hosted push email and synchronization service for the Chinese market.

However, in contrast to Apple's approach, Synchronica's Mobile Gateway is based on open industry standards (IMAP, SyncML) and works with the vast majority of smartphones and mass market mobile phones without requiring additional client software to be installed on the device. This makes Mobile Gateway a compelling choice for service providers (both mobile operators and device manufacturers) if they want to offer a MobileMe for the rest of us.

About Mobile Gateway

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway 4.0 provides push email and synchronization to consumers and business users on any handset without requiring additional client software. The multi-protocol solution combines industry-standard LEMONADE and OMA EMN push email with Email to SMS, WAP Push, and Email to MMS to provide the best possible user experience from high-end smartphones to entry-level devices. Address book and calendar synchronization using SyncML completes the service offering for business users, as well as consumers. Serving consumers and prosumers, Mobile Gateway includes back-end support for POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, connecting to popular services, such as AOL or Gmail. Business mailboxes supported include Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, and Sun Java Communications Suite. Realtime RSS feeds connect users to newsfeeds and deliver social networking updates.

About Synchronica

Synchronica plc is a global innovator in next-generation mobile messaging technologies. Its flagship product, Unity, been chosen by more than 100 of the world's leading mobile operators and OEMs to power their own-branded push email, instant messaging, and social networking services.

With leading features such as Unified Messaging, Geo Socialization, and RCS as a Service, Unity connects to any mobile device - from the most basic mobile phone, to high-end tablets - providing customers with a strong foundation on which to achieve market differentiation, diversified revenue streams, and reduced churn.

Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Synchronica maintains global research and development centres in Canada, Germany, India, and the Philippines. Synchronica's shares trade on the London Stock Exchange AIM market (SYNC) and the Venture Exchange of the Toronto Stock Exchange (SYN).

For more information please visit www.synchronica.com or follow Synchronica on Twitter: @SynchronicaPLC.

For more information, please contact:

David Clark
Tel.: +44 1892 5527 20
Fax: +44 1892 5527 21
david.clark@synchronica.com