Synchronica Embraces Google's 'Open' Claim

By Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica

Google Android is another smartphone platform which Synchronica will support using industry standards IMAP and SyncML - in the same way that we support Symbian, Apple iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS.

We welcome Google's entry to the smartphone market. It's very good to have another OS available, and we're applauding that Google has taken the route of openness and support for industry standards.

However, what I would say is that Google Android will be addressing a very similar market to Apple with its iPhone, i.e., early-adopter, wealthy, high-tech users. Therefore, it's unlikely that we will see Android in the booming emerging or mass markets any time soon. But it is interesting for end-users in the USA, Europe, and perhaps Japan.

To be truly "open" as Google claims, we expect Android phones to incorporate an internet message access protocol client (IMAP client) for mobile email and a SyncML DS client for synchronization of calendar and contacts. This is all that Synchronica's Mobile Gateway middleware needs to deliver push email and synchronization to Android phones out of the box, just as we were able to synchronize email with the Apple iPhone as soon as it shipped without requiring any additional software to be installed on the handset.

By using the built-in IMAP client, GPhone users will be able to use Synchronica Mobile Gateway to access corporate email as we will provide a relay to Microsoft Exchange. Because corporate firewalls often block IMAP traffic for security reasons, we will use Outlook Web Access (OWA) as we do when synchronizing email, calendar, and contacts between Microsoft Exchange and regular mobile phones.

We seem to have this misconception that every time a major vendor jumps into the market, we will see smartphone sales surging. However, this is not reflecting the reality. Last year, smartphones represented just eleven percent of all mobile handsets shipped. My prediction is that although Android may represent a threat to other smartphone vendors, it will have little impact on the market share of smartphones vs. mass market feature phones which will continue to dominate the mass market and which Synchronica Mobile Gateway was developed to serve, too.

About Mobile Gateway

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway provides carrier-grade push email and synchronization services for virtually all mass market feature phones and smartphones being used by subscribers today. It is based on the dominant open industry standards Push IMAP (LEMONADE) for mobile email and SyncML (OMA DS) for contact and calendar synchronization and works with the built-in email and synchronization clients found in more than 1.5 billion phones. The new email-to-SMS functionality expands its reach to virtually every phone in use today. Serving consumers and prosumers, Mobile Gateway includes back-end support for POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, connecting to popular services, such as AOL or Gmail. For business users, it provides a unique zero footprint architecture where users simply register their devices and instantly start to receive corporate email on their phone without requiring additional connectors behind the firewall. Business mailboxes supported include Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, and Sun Java Communications Suite.

About Synchronica

Synchronica plc develops and markets mobile email and synchronization solutions for mobile operators and device manufacturers. Products include the award-winning push email and synchronization solution Mobile Gateway and the device backup solution Mobile Backup. Based on industry standards, Synchronica can reach the built-in email and synchronization clients of more than 1.5 billion mobile devices on the market today. Service providers in emerging and developed markets use Synchronica products to offer mobile email, PIM synchronization, and backup and restore services to consumer and business subscribers.

Synchronica recently acquired AxisMobile and is set to become the leading player in mass market mobile email and synchronization middleware. The enhanced Synchronica Mobile Gateway will offer the most comprehensive multi-protocol mobile email solution in the market today, introducing email-to-SMS and email-to-MMS, as well as WAP and XHTML gateways. Document transcoding will add the ability to display a large variety of attachments, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on standard feature phones.

Headquartered in England, Synchronica has a development center in Germany and presences in the USA, Hong Kong, and Dubai. Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC). More information is available at www.synchronica.com

For more information, please contact:

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