After years of mostly futile efforts to exploit the largely untapped wireless e-mail market, wireless companies are thinking small. Instead of working to put high-tech devices in the hands of every road warrior and high-level executive, messaging companies are targeting consumers and low-end business users with affordable-if limited-mobile e-mail offerings.
It’s no secret that uptake in the wireless e-mail space has disappointed, particularly among business types. Research in Motion Ltd. and its BlackBerry remain the brand of choice for today’s business wireless e-mail subscribers, claiming about two-thirds of the nation’s 3 million enterprise users. But a recent Yankee Group report estimates the potential market for U.S. wireless e-mail users in the enterprise is at least 35 million, dwarfing the number of BlackBerry holders today.
Yet, given the inability to loosen RIM’s current stranglehold on high-powered executives who have taken the wireless e-mail plunge, it makes sense to target users further down the value chain.
“There really is no successful, mass-market consumer (wireless) e-mail solution in place,” said Skuli Mogensen, chief executive of OZ. “RIM has done a very good job (targeting enterprise) with its BlackBerry; their entire offering is very attractive. But that’s far from a mass-market reach.”
Primarily a mobile instant-messaging provider, OZ entered the wireless e-mail space two weeks ago with an offering that allows users to access branded e-mail from portals including AOL, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! and others. The product is designed to complement OZ’s IM services and allow users to easily access e-mail on mass-produced phones instead of expensive, high-tech devices.
“The phone is the ultimate mass-market device; it’s the electronic device of choice today,” Mogensen said. “It ends up in the hands of people who do not want to read manuals, who might use 3 or 4 percent of the capabilities of the phone.”
Mobile software developer Critical Path Inc. joined the field last week, launching a line of products including mobile e-mail messaging and anti-abuse offerings. Memova Mobile pushes e-mail from existing accounts to mobile phones, and works with any multimedia messaging service handset, the company said.
“Previously, the lack of usable consumer mobile e-mail services has caused service providers to focus primarily on the professional or enterprise segment, leaving the mass market largely untapped,” said Mike Serbinis, Critical Path’s chief technology officer. “The key to unlocking this market’s potential is a solution that provides consumers with an easy-to-use, affordable and feature-rich push e-mail experience they can enjoy on their existing handsets.”
Like other offerings, Memova allows users to control which messages are sent to their phones. Unlike executives, who can’t afford to let a message slip through the cracks, casual users may not want every e-mail forwarded to their handsets, ringing up wireless data usage fees. And with the growing popularity of “all you can eat” data plans, carriers sometimes aren’t keen on automatic delivery of mobile e-mail, which can weigh down data networks without generating the kind of revenues that multimedia messages can produce.
Also, low-end users are less likely to spend hours sorting through their messages on most phones, which have smaller screens and more cumbersome controls than devices built for e-mail like the BlackBerry.
In an effort to make handsets more e-mail user-friendly, Wireless2Web L.L.C., a Chatsworth, Calif.-based company, offers “LinkPush,” which sends a hyperlink to a handset describing the message’s content. Users can choose which messages they want delivered immediately, which they want to access later and which to delete.
The idea is to mimic the user interface of a desktop computer, which typically offers cursory information such as sender and subject, allowing users to prioritize messages. And with the limited amount of memory available on most phones, subscribers can’t afford to subject their devices to an avalanche of information automatically delivered from their desktops, said Richard Helferich, founder and managing partner of Wireless2Web.
“It’s a cross between push e-mail and pull e-mail-it doesn’t cause the user to pull everything they want, and doesn’t push everything on the user,” Helferich said. “It gives the user enough information so he or she can manage what’s out there.”
Even some enterprise-focused developers are beginning to target low-end users. Intellisync Corp., one of a half-dozen developers vying for a foothold in the enterprise market, recently launched a stripped-down version of its Mobile Suite product. The software is supported by Java- and BREW-enabled handsets, and features an on-demand push e-mail service.
So while the BlackBerry is more popular than ever among top-level executives who live on e-mail, casual users looking to occasionally check their messages on-the-go are attracting the eye of mobile messaging companies. For such efforts to be successful, though, services must be cheap, easy to use, and work on a slew of mass-market handsets, according to Eugene Signorini, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group.
“(Providers are saying) that e-mail is ubiquitous enough for both professionals and consumers, and there’s no reason the application can’t be extended wirelessly in a cost-effective way that all wireless users can enjoy access to it,” Signorini said. “Now, with the capabilities of phones being even greater than ever, this is a no-brainer.”
