3GSM: Oz launches branded e-mail over IM

CANNES, FRANCE--Oz today at the GSM World Congress announced it has expanded its symbiotic relationship with the major IM providers to incorporate their e-mail services into its mobile instant messaging client.

Oz is using a SynchML-based solution to incorporate Web-based email from AOL, MSN Hotmail and Yahoo directly into its IM client. The service basically gives instant access to a mail account on a handset very similarly to the way that email is accessed on those companies’ web portals or through their PC web clients. The difference is the Oz client doesn’t launch a separate browser and use network-intensive IMAP protocols to access the email accounts. It incorporates them into an optimized viewing client and uses the more mobile network friendly SynchML standard to access those accounts, said Skuli Mogensen, CEO of Oz.

Mogensen that while email has been a key driver for businesses adopting mobile email, consumers have been disappointed with the current ungainly services available. Most carriers offer their own branded email accounts, and while they usually have the capability of accessing other POP email, consumers don’t want to make the effort to engage the proper settings, he said. What customers want, Mogensen claimed, is to access their Yahoo, Hotmail or MSN accounts. Almost every wireless user has a free account with one of those providers. Giving them easy access to those accounts, would be an obvious way of generating more data revenue, Mogensen said.

“Those services may be free on the fixed Internet, but it’s pretty commonly accepted that what’s free online, consumers will pay for if they can get over mobile,” Mogensen said.

Oz has enjoyed enormous success worldwide in selling its branded IM solution, and has landed every U.S. carrier except for Verizon Wireless, which has launched IM using Comverse’s solution. Last week, Oz announced it had landed Sprint as a customer, landing its first CDMA customer and dispelling the notion that it is a GSM-only vendor, Mogensen said.

While the IM server is now only supporting the major branded Web-email providers, Mogensen said Oz can easily add other POP email services, which could make it an appealing product to cable companies and other wireline providers getting into the MVNO business.