E-Mail Bonding

E-mail is one of wireless data's most promising, mass-appeal applications. But deploying it successfully means making it seamless and user-friendly.

In the world of wireless, all roads lead to data. Whether you see yourself as a paging provider or a wireless provider, like it or not, you're in the business of moving data to mobile workers. That means moving business data to business workers. Growth in this market won't be driven by your neighbor wirelessly buying a Grisham novel from his hammock.

What's the killer app that businesses can't live without? Certainly it will be about mobile access to information, but what information? Information from the corporate database? Yes, in some cases. Intranet data? Yes, to an extent. Internet data? Absolutely, but that's not what will bring persuasive wireless-data services to the masses. The key that opens the floodgates is the promise of always-on, mobile access to desktop data.

Push & Pull
E-mail has addicted us to the personal-information manager (PIM). Tasks, calendaring, e-mail and contact databases are critical to today's workforce. This is what people want, and they don't want to have to synch a portable to get it. They don't want a copy of their messages from six hours ago; they want the messages and the ability to reply to them now. They want up-to-the-minute access to their PIM data, cheaply and easily.

It's anybody's guess what device will facilitate mobile access to your office desktop organizer. It could be a laptop or notebook, or it might be a PalmPilot or Pocket PC. Infowave Software is betting that it will be a wearable device, such as a pager or phone.

One application aimed at this market is Infowave Software's Symmetry, a 2MB, downloadable .exe that runs on a corporate, always-on desktop and creates a 2-way conduit between Microsoft Outlook and a wireless device. It's simple, it's inexpensive, and it uses proven hardware that millions already own.

An e-mail solution should include both push and pull aspects. Using an Exchange server and a wireless Internet gateway, such as PCS, SMS and paging networks, Symmetry sends Outlook data to users' pagers, phones or other wireless devices. Symmetry runs unobtrusively in the background, where it monitors activity in Outlook. When new e-mail arrives, an appointment pops up, or a task comes due, the information is forwarded to your device. Because the application knows something about the abilities of the receiving hardware, forwarded data is formatted to make the best of use of the device's screen capabilities.

A wireless e-mail solution also should allow user-defined rules to restrict what data is forwarded and when. For example, the user can receive a calendar summary once a day or be notified as events occur. When e-mail arrives, the program should check if messages from that person should be held or sent immediately. Users could forward messages based on keywords or other criteria, or they could send the whole message, part of the message or just the subject line. That's the push aspect.

Pull occurs when you want to check for new messages or see the people in your database whose last names begin with G. With symmetry, for example, regardless of whether Outlook is running on your company PC, as long as the machine is turned on, Symmetry is waiting for your query. When you send a command requesting an updated calendar or contact information, the data is found, formatted and returned immediately.

One important issue is what happens when you reply to an e-mail using your wireless device. If the recipient's "from" box shows your device's e-mail address rather than your usual e-mail address, the unfamiliar and cryptic address might make the recipient assume that it's from someone else. A solution that uses your standard e-mail address regardless of whether you're using your PC or wireless device also ensures that the recipient's reply first goes through your desktop inbox instead of directly to your wireless device.

Building on Popularity
Outlook is the most popular communications and contact-management product used in business today, so a wireless e-mail solution compatible with Outlook enjoys a wide base of potential users. At the same time, today's workforce relies on its e-mail and contact databases, and clients and co-workers have come to expect quick response times. That trend likely won't wane.

But using notebooks and dial-up connections to access e-mail is expensive and redundant, not to mention heavy and awkward. Worse, that approach requires users to constantly check if new information has arrived. Wireless can streamline that process. Before leaving the office, users simply set up the device to synchronize with a PIM, which synchronizes with Outlook. As a result, they get a real-time connection and the ability to pull information anytime from anywhere.

Another advantage of an integrated e-mail solution is that it avoids clunky combinations, such as cables linking laptops to wireless phones to dial into the server, and unnecessary expenses, such as dialing in only to find no new e-mail.

Any product or service that caters to users of both wireless and Outlook has a future. A growing percentage of the business-people in that group own e-mail-addressable, 2-way devices. That's the established demographic that wireless providers could easily and cheaply upgrade to data services.

"As with any new hardware/software solution, seamless remote access to Outlook needs to work within the existing computing environment and involve minimal incremental cost," said Ron Jasper, Infowave Software vice president, marketing.

For wireless providers, the benefits go beyond additional minutes of use. Offering e-mail can enhance the way their customers perceive them, so providers need to emphasize their data capabilities.

"Some of these guys are sitting on 2-way data networks with nationwide coverage footprints, great in-building penetration and are already serving millions of customers, and people still think of them as a paging or voice-only network," Jasper said.

E-mail also is an opportunity to promote the wireless provider's brand. When a user installs Symmetry, for example, he sees the wireless provider's name and logo. In an industry where customer loyalty is built on taking advantage of every differentiation possible, the desktop is prime real estate.

"We offer a simple value-add functionality to wireless carriers that not only gives their customers a truly useful and efficient service but also gives service providers themselves a chance to bring their branding to the desktop," Jasper said.

In business, and especially in the technology business, success often isn't about throwing everything out and starting from scratch to build a solution to a problem. Sometimes it's a matter of taking what you have and bringing it together in a new way. Wireless providers have the customers and conduits, and businesses have the data and the need. E-mail can bring it all together.

Phipps (tphipps@infowave.com) is Infowave Software director of product management.