Centralizing access to e-mail boxes can be a complicated matter that is often further hampered by solutions requiring an additional e-mail account. Instead of making access easier, the user ends up with another e-mail address.
ViAir Inc., a mobile applications management and delivery platform provider, introduced its WirelessInBox Enterprise solution as a way to bypass the extra dot-whatever. ViAir said its platform is targeted at carriers and Internet service providers and gives wireless users simultaneous access to their existing Internet and corporate e-mail, calendar and contacts using most Web-enabled devices and networks.
“By eliminating the need to invest time and resources into server software behind the firewall, our customers can drive immediate adoption and daily usage of the wireless Web,” said Bruce Chatterley, chief executive officer of Seattle-based ViAir.
WirelessInBox provides mobile users with access to corporate e-mail, Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes, calendar and contacts and up to 10 existing Internet e-mail accounts via a single sign-on. The service also allows information to be received without the need to deploy a server behind a company’s corporate firewall, freeing users to integrate their business e-mail accounts
In addition, the service provides automatic data harmonization when reading or deleting messages, editing contacts or accessing a corporate calendar. Chatterley said this is important because it allows messages deleted from the WirelessInBox platform to be deleted from the user’s accessed account at the same time.
“Messaging is the 1/8killer app’ for the wireless Internet,” Chatterley said. “Smaller applications will follow, but right now messaging is the big application.”
While the market for centralizing e-mail accounts is competitive, Chatterley said ViAir is different from its competitors, in that users do not need to memorize a new password for access to a new e-mail account, they sell access to existing mailboxes and users get “information at the source.”
ViAir said WirelessInBox Enterprise is an enhanced version of its WirelessInBox application delivering direct, mobile access to Internet e-mail and contacts. The application is built on ViAir’s carrier-grade platform to ensure maximum performance and availability to end users as well as branding options and integration for service providers.
WirelessInBox has already found a home with Canadian wireless operator Rogers AT&T, which implemented the platform into its network last July.
Earlier this month, ViAir announced Nextel Communications Inc. was going to be the first U.S.-based operator to integrate its platform onto its network, and that Clearnet was planning a market trial in Canada later this year.
“With current penetration rates, the carriers are the best way for us to distribute our services,” Chatterley said. “We are confident the carriers are the right distribution channel for our platform, and we have a good solution that works and will help carriers grow their wireless Web customer base.”
