E-mail is a key mobile application for business users,
but what are the differences between Research in Motion's
Blackberry system and Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0?
Last month Microsoft launched mobile e-mail functionality to
challenge Research In Motion's Blackberry system.
Blackberry dominates the mobile e-mail market, with users such
as Abbey, Friends Provident and Prudential. However, with a law
suit over intellectual property rights threatening to shut down the
Blackberry network in the US, IT directors are paying more
attention to emerging alternatives.
IT directors can deploy Blackberry devices by signing a contract
with any of four main network operators - O2, Orange, T-Mobile or
Vodafone.
Under the contract, the network operator supplies an e-mail
gateway server called the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) as
well as the mobile devices. BES is a product that strips the e-mail
messages that arrive at the company's e-mail server of their
formatting and compresses them. Attachments are also compressed.
Powerpoint and PDF files are removed.
The BES then sends the e-mails to RIM's relay in Egham, Surrey.
The relay, or network operation centre, handles every e-mail that
is sent to a Blackberry user in Europe. Similar relays exist in the
US and Asia. The e-mail messages are also encrypted and given a
header by the BES. They are sent via a permanent outbound-only
internet connection from port 3101.
When the relay receives e-mails from the BES, it reads the
header on each one. RIM gives each network operator a pool of IP
addresses when they agree to distribute to Blackberry devices.
The relay assigns the incoming e-mail to the devices with IP
addresses that correspond to the headers. As the device holds the
encryption key, all e-mails are secure throughout the transmission
process.
Companies pay a monthly tariff for each user equipped with a
Blackberry device. One concern a company may have with deploying
the Blackberry is the amount of data individuals download.
However, each device has a notional monthly limit on its data
use. The data limit has been set by the network and RIM so that
few, if any, users will use more data than their flat-rate tariff
allows.
Lee Underwood, RIM's commercial relations director, said, "All
of the operators will have an operational limit of anything up to
20Mbytes per month. There is very little risk of the customer going
over the notional threshold."
Steve Tait, business solutions manager at T-Mobile, is confident
that users are unlikely to go over their data limit. "I am not
aware of anyone who has bust the allowance bundle using e-mail on
our network. If you are just using e-mail, you have got a known
cost," he said.
The main alternative to Blackberry is Microsoft, which launched
a mobile e-mail service as a patch to the Windows Mobile 5.0
operating system at the start of 2006. Microsoft had been due to
include push e-mail in the launch of Mobile 5.0 last summer. But
the push e-mail component had to be delayed.
Windows Mobile 5.0-equipped devices with push e-mail will
repeatedly send small data packets to their corporate user's
Microsoft Exchange server. Because the devices frequently ask
e-mail servers whether they have new e-mails, Microsoft will have
what is effectively a push e-mail system.
Companies can deploy Windows Mobile-equipped devices without
buying an additional server or middleware application from a third
party.
E-mail messages are sent directly over the mobile phone network
from the corporate Microsoft Exchange server to the Windows Mobile
device. There is no need for a network operations centre to route
e-mail messages to individual devices.
However, corporate users need Mobile 5.0 phones to constantly
send data packets so that their e-mail servers can identify
individual mobile devices.
Each data packet that the device sends to its e-mail server
carries a data charge. Companies that decide to deploy Windows
Mobile devices could potentially use more data than companies that
use Blackberry devices.
Windows Mobile smartphone devices, such as the Qtek 8310 and the
XDA Mini S, have more powerful processors than other devices so
that they can handle data-intensive, potentially large applications
and e-mail attachments.
The availability of attachments on mobiles, however, creates a
problem for corporate users who want a transparent flat-rate tariff
for their mobile deployment.
Clearly, users sending and receiving large Powerpoint, PDF or
Excel files will quickly use more data than a Blackberry user.
Microsoft and network operators have yet to decide how much
users will be charged. But the potentially higher data costs of the
Microsoft approach must be assessed against the running costs of
the Blackberry.
Gartner research director Monica Basso said, "Network operations
centre-based architectures [such as Blackberry] have potentially
higher costs because of service charges covering the cost of the
centre and additional infrastructure.
"There is also greater potential for unreliability. This risk
can be mitigated by adding redundant equipment, but it remains more
complex than the approach in which enterprise, mobile operator and
wireless device are connected by the basic internet."
Nokia's mobile e-mail system
Nokia launched its push e-mail system last autumn. It has yet to
announce any deployments with companies based in the UK, but the
software is designed to work with any Microsoft e-mail server.
Nokia's system uses software called Nokia Business Centre to
connect to the company e-mail servers. Mobile devices constantly
send small data packets to Nokia Business Centre. When the company
server has an e-mail message for a user, Nokia Business Centre will
forward it to their mobile device.
Nokia Business Centre also compresses e-mail messages to reduce
data traffic over the GPRS network.