Synchronica launches free trial of Mobile Gateway 3

Synchronica today announced a free trial of its Mobile Gateway 3.0, providing mobile synchronization between Microsoft Exchange and the native email client of the iPhone.

Owners of the Apple smartphone can now try Mobile Gateway free of charge to send and receive corporate email using their iPhones - without having to install any software on the device or behind the corporate firewall.

Until now, owners of Apple's ground-breaking smartphone have been largely locked out of corporate mail systems, because the built-in email client of the iPhone only supports Microsoft Exchange via direct IMAP/SMTP connections - a feature which is often blocked by corporate firewalls due to security concerns.

Synchronica now provides a secure gateway in the corporate environment using Microsoft's Outlook Web Access (OWA) to retrieve email from the Exchange server, a service enabled by many enterprises to provide users with access to corporate email from home or while traveling.

Mobile Gateway is a perfect companion to Apple's iTunes application. While iTunes synchronizes calendar and contacts with Microsoft Outlook, Mobile Gateway keeps iPhone users connected to their corporate email once they have left the office. It provides tight integration between the iPhone and Microsoft Exchange and automatically delivers emails to the built-in email application of the iPhone, including support for folders and attachments.

Replies and new messages are relayed back to the corporate Exchange server and appear in the 'Sent Items' folder in Outlook when the user comes back to the office -- no need for the cumbersome copy-to-self workaround.

Signing up for the service is easy and straightforward. Thanks to Mobile Gateway's unique zero footprint architecture, users simply register their iPhones with Synchronica's Mobile Gateway and can start to send and receive wireless email immediately - no software to be installed on the device and no connectors or redirectors to be installed in the corporate network.

Early adopters of the Apple iPhone interested in a test drive of Mobile Gateway 3.0 can visit www.synchronica.com to sign up for the free 60-day trial starting today. After the trial period, Synchronica intends to announce migration options to a commercially supported solution including offerings through service providers.

Commenting on the launch of the free trial, Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, said, "Mobile Gateway has the unique advantage that it does not require firewall modification or any software to be installed in the corporate network. So this won't cause any headaches for IT managers when their executives bring their iPhones into the office and ask them to get corporate email on their latest gadget. Other vendors are claiming support for Microsoft Exchange synchronization with the Apple iPhone, but most are still developing their service and use cumbersome redirectors or even plan to offer browser-based access to corporate email. We are the only company that can offer this service straightaway with zero footprint and fully integrated with the built-in email client of the iPhone."

Mobile Gateway is operated on the 'edge' of the network, offered by a service provider as a hosted service or deployed in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) of the corporate network. Data is protected during synchronization by encrypted IMAP/SMTP connections to the iPhone and secure HTTPS connections to Microsoft Exchange. Mobile Gateway provides an IMAP/SMTP proxy for the iPhone, relaying into WebDAV requests -- the same protocol used by Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA).

The iPhone is just the latest device supported by Synchronica's Mobile Gateway middleware, which enables mobile synchronization with a wide range of smartphones and mass market feature phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and other leading manufacturers. Mobile Gateway is based entirely on open industry standards, including IMAP (LEMONADE) for push email and SyncML (OMA DS) for synchronization of calendar and contact data.

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway 3.0 provides carrier-grade push email 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 Google Mail. For business users, it provides built-in support for Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Sun JES, thereby reaching the majority of business users' mail systems.