Synchronica syncs Apple’s iPhone to Microsoft Exchange

Synchronica plc, an international provider of mobile synchronization and device management solutions, today announced that Mobile Gateway 3.0 supports over-the-air synchronization between Microsoft Exchange and the newly launched Apple iPhone. This will allow mobile operators and service providers to offer mobile synchronization to business users and prosumers, enabling them to receive corporate e-mail on their iPhones without having to ask their IT manager to open the firewall or install additional software.

Mobile Gateway seamlessly integrates with the corporate IT infrastructure and does not require the enterprise to expose IMAP and SMTP in their Exchange servers or install additional connectors – issues that often raise security concerns with IT administrators. Instead, Mobile Gateway uses Microsoft’s secure Outlook Web Access (OWA) to retrieve e-mail from the corporate Exchange server, a service enabled by many enterprises to provide users with access to corporate e-mail from home or while traveling.

Unlike other solutions Mobile Gateway 3.0 delivers e-mails directly to the built-in e-mail client of the Apple iPhone. Users will be able to benefit from the outstanding user experience of the built-in e-mail client of the iPhone and its tight integration with the phone’s address book.

The iPhone is the latest device to be supported by Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway 3.0 middleware, which enables synchronization with a wide range of Smartphones and mass-market feature phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and other leading manufacturers. Synchronica believes that the iPhone will add momentum to the prosumer and consumer mobile e-mail phenomenon, which industry analyst visiongain predicts will grow exponentially to reach 36 million consumer mobile email accounts by 2008, with this figure predicted to rise to 184 million by 2012.

Commenting on the decision to support Microsoft Exchange synchronization with the Apple iPhone, Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica said, “The iPhone is a very attractive Smartphone, appealing to both the consumer and prosumer market. However, IT Managers are not going to permit their executives to synchronize a device that requires them to punch holes in the corporate firewall. Mobile Gateway already supports synchronization with Microsoft Exchange, but does not require firewall modification or any software to be installed in the corporate network, so this won’t be an issue. From a carrier’s perspective, we are significantly expanding the reach of the iPhone into the business user and prosumer segments.”

Synchronica was one of the first synchronization software vendors to combine both SyncML (OMA DS), which is optimized for synchronization of calendar and contacts, and Push-IMAP (LEMONADE), which is optimized for mobile e-mail. Millions of mobile phones support e-mail over IMAP, but IMAP does not support calendar or contact synchronization. Thus, combining Push IMAP for mobile e-mail with SyncML (OMA DS) for synchronization of calendar and contacts allows Synchronica to support the widest range of devices and the most popular content types.

Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway provides carrier-grade Push e-mail and synchronization services for both consumers and business users. Serving consumers, it includes back-end support for POP3 and IMAP, connecting to popular mail services such as AOL or Yahoo. For business users, it provides a unique “zero footprint” architecture where users simply register their devices with Mobile Gateway and instantly start to receive Push e-mail on their devices--no connectors behind the firewall are required. It includes built-in support for Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Sun JES, thereby reaching the majority of business user mail systems.