Nokia's Activesync for S60 is not news

THE CEO OF mobile email specialist Synchronica - Carsten Brinkschulte - has dismissed Nokia's recent announcement of Microsoft Activesync support in its entire Series 60 range as "not real news at all."

Following Synchronica's recent acquisition of Axis Mobile, the combined company says it can supply mobile email for the masses. It reckons their combined software can provide access to email to 99.99 per cent of existing handsets.

That's because Axis had email-to-SMS (text) and email-to-MMS (picture messaging) gateways. So it's possible to both send and receive emails via text if the handset has no WAP/HTML browser, for example.

"Nokia was boasting it can address around 80 million handsets with its Microsoft Exchange Activesync client, but what about the billions of handsets that it has already shipped?"

"Series 40 is Nokia's real workhorse. What about those phones?" Brinkschulte asked.

Synchronica is also able to put its money where its mouth is and is actively benefitting from licensing its products in emerging markets.

This week it announced that it has received a first phase order from one of CIS' largest operators, MTS, worth $730,000.

"That order just covers Moscow and I expect the second phase when it rolls our Simplemail offering out to its other territories to be worth substantially more," Brinkschulte told the INQ.

He also claimed Synchronica has landed orders from two African network operators each worth around $500,000.

"So there is demand and you can make money out of emerging markets," Carsten Brinkschulte maintains. "While voice is the primary application, store and forward email has a big role to play in those countries."

Brinkschulte's comments come on the same day that 3 UK announced free email support for those on its £4.26 Internet Max package – as predicted by the INQ.

3 customers can download the email on 3 client for its web site – here. µ