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R E V I E W

E-Mail Without Wires

May 29, 2003
By Dave Molta

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Sprint-Seven

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	In this article
	Introduction
	Selection Criteria
	Synchrologic
	Extended Systems
	Good Technology
	Research in Motion (RIM)
	Sprint-Seven
	T-Mobile
	Executive Summary \| Scenario \| Evaluating Wireless E-Mail ROI
	Responses To RFIs

Both Seven and one of its primary business partners, Sprint, submitted responses to our RFI. However, because Sprint's service is based on Seven technology and Seven does not market directly to enterprises, we consolidated the two responses.

Sprint offers two major varieties of wireless e-mail service. Business Connection Personal Edition is a desktop-redirector solution, an effective choice if you plan to provide service to a limited number of users. For more ambitious enterprise deployments, Sprint offers Business Connection Enterprise Edition, a managed service that depends on an extranet relationship between your organization and Sprint, where your e-mail servers are integrated into Sprint's back-end solution.

Business Connection Enterprise Edition is a full-featured wireless e-mail system that uses bidirectional wireless sync for e-mail and PIM services. A specialized client application is installed on the mobile device, providing access to e-mail and PIM information, including scheduling, personal and group contacts, and task information. To take advantage of e-mail push and sync capabilities, you need to install client software, but the system also supports online operation via a smart browser application, where the system optimizes the display for specific mobile device browsers. The specialized client application provides a number of advanced capabilities, including an optimized sync protocol that updates only changes, multi-inbox access for users who have multiple e-mail accounts, flexible offline capabilities, integrated attachment viewing for a wide range of file formats and voice-response-to-e-mail capabilities.

In terms of device management, all systems can be registered and provisioned wirelessly, client software can be updated over the air, and a wide range of Web-based usage reports are available.

Although Sprint didn't provide much detail on the service, Seven highlighted the Business Connection Server-based connection alternative. In this case, the Seven server is installed and managed behind the firewall, with Sprint used primarily as a wireless carrier. Although the managed-service solution provides integration with a wide range of back-end e-mail environments, not all services are available with the server-based solution.

Online browser-based access is supported on a number of different devices, including WAP-browser cell phones, Pocket PC, Handspring (Blazer browser), and, if using a notebook computer, via Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Client software used for push e-mail services is available for PalmOS and Pocket PC. As you might expect, Sprint targets the smart-phone market, including Handspring Treo, Samsung i3x0 and i500, and Toshiba 2032.

In response to our inquiry about ROI, Sprint presented an interesting model that showed how a company with a $20 million market capitalization, 150 employees and a 20 percent market share could recognize a quantifiable return of $18.2 million over five years. While we appreciated Sprint's attempt to be specific, its model is loaded with assumptions that seem tenuous at best, including the assumption that market share was directly related to employee-hours of effort.

A managed services model represents a low-risk approach that can be quickly implemented, but it does not provide the kind of long-term flexibility you'll get with a behind-the-firewall solution. According to Sprint, though, it is much less expensive, and we're inclined to agree. Sprint and Seven both provided results of internal analysis that pegged monthly per-user cost of ownership at $27, compared with more than $64 for competing solutions. A big portion of this savings is attributable to a lower cost for wireless service, which makes sense in those competitive instances where mobile staff would have separate wireless e-mail and cell-phone accounts.

Sprint (PCS division of Sprint), (800) 829-0965, (800) 480-4727 (telesales). www.sprintpcs.com/bizcon.html Seven, (650) 381-2500. www.seven.com