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Vodafone Ireland will launch a device-independent e-mail service for corporate clients, in a move that could make users think twice about buying a BlackBerry.
The new service, part of Vodafone's "Work Anywhere" set of products, is expected to launch in September and the company plans to announce more details about the service in August of this year.
For now, the firm is saying that the product will be a Web/WAP-based corporate e-mail solution that will allow customers to access enterprise e-mail messages through any network-enabled device. The solution also has an Internet-based calendar function. HSCSD customers and GPRS enterprise customers will be able to launch the service.
The service is likely to be called "Work Anywhere E-Mail" and according to Natalie McGuinness, applications manager at Vodafone Ireland, it will be the "Hero Application" of the company's Work Anywhere set of products. "We have put a lot of weight behind this because we have seen a constant demand from our corporate clients to roll out this type of application," she told ElectricNews.Net.
In fact the company claims that 87 percent of its corporate/enterprise clients say they want to launch a mobile e-mail solution. Moreover these customers want a solution that effectively links with existing corporate e-mail. And Vodafone claims its product will do just that. Lorraine McGrath, product manager at Vodafone Ireland, explained that the software on which the product is based will sit on Vodafone's own servers. "There is very little effort needed from customers to set it up," she said.
More importantly however, the two Vodafone executives said that the services is "incredibly" secure. "Let's put it this way. We are a global company and we are rolling it out on our own system. That's how secure we think it is," McGuinness said. She went on to say that IBM, which is delivering the service, is also launching the product for its employees.
In essence, the new Vodafone product should do much of what BlackBerry is expected to do for O2 clients; but Vodafone's service is device-independent, which means that e-mails can be collected from any WAP or Web-enabled handset, regardless of the manufacturer. "BlackBerry requires proprietary software and hardware which can be costly," McGrath pointed out. Citing what Vodafone believes to be other strengths of the service, the two executives said that launching the product would require very little technical know-how on the part of business wishing to install it.
"We just want to make it as simple as humanly possible," McGuinness said. The company is not revealing how much it will cost, saying only that it will be "competitively priced." The launch of similar services is underway by other Vodafone operators in Europe.
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