E-mail vendors position for market growth

The squabble over mobile e-mail market share continues, with Research In Motion Ltd., Palm Inc., Visto Corp., and others making waves in the market. Market potential drives such feuds, as research and consulting firm IDC predicted the number of worldwide mobile workers will grow from 650 million last year to 850 million by 2009.

Among the recent announcements on the mobile e-mail front:

• Palm Inc. said it will add support for RIM’s BlackBerry service to its Treo 650 smart phone. Starting next year, Treo 650 users will be able to purchase access to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server using Treo’s VersaMail software. The agreement puts Palm in league with Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. and others that are RIM BlackBerry Connect licensees.

   

• Not to be outdone, RIM announced its new BlackBerry Internet E-mail service for Yahoo! e-mail users. The service works on the BlackBerry 7105t from T-Mobile USA Inc. The technology essentially will push Yahoo! e-mails down to the gadget.

   

• Visto unveiled its new Mobile Secure Voice service, which will allow Visto mobile e-mail users to respond to e-mails with voice messages. The service is an outgrowth of Visto’s acquisition of Trekmail.

   

• Extended Systems released version 5.0 of its OneBridge Mobile Groupware offering, which the company said includes a simple user interface and IT management capabilities.