Shaun Orpen, marketing director of Orange Business Solutions in the UK, told ComputerWire that, in his opinion, the company’s latest SPV C500 handset, based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphones, has moved the goalposts for corporate data mobility.

Without this [the C500] there have been a number of barriers to business adopting smart phones. Security reasons, economic reasons, cultural reasons. These kinds of devices are in general still quite expensive. The C500 puts mobile data in the hands of the masses. In my mind there’s no way you’ll avoid using data on them.

The SPV C500 is now available to business users from Orange UK for about 100 pounds with contract, according to Orpen (it is available free to pay-monthly consumers). This means highly data capable devices are now viable alternatives both to conventional handsets and to data-centric machines such as RIM’s BlackBerry devices, especially for those users that wish to read rather than respond to email.

We’ve got rid of the pricing barrier, the battery life is good and it’s a small size. Why wouldn’t you have one, said Orpen. That combination could tip a lot of companies over into mass data. The enablement of basic wireless email to Windows Smartphones out of the box in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 also looks set to be an important factor in growing take-up.

Previous handsets in the SPV range have been faulted for their lack of performance in areas such as battery life and application processing and in their relative bulk as mobile handsets. The C500, which is an Orange-specific variant of the Typhoon design from Taiwan-based ODM High Tech Computer, has moved the goalposts for this class of device, especially in terms of compactness. Battery life and voice call quality are also much improved over its predecessors.

However, while these qualities might make handsets such as the C500 attractive to procurement departments within businesses, their entry through the back door might prove less popular with IT departments.

Orpen is of the belief that IT departments are increasingly waking up to the need to proactively put the infrastructure and security policy in place to support mobile devices, often resulting from good experiences with BlackBerry. Orpen said early corporate take-up of the C500 has been encouraging, although he was not at liberty to disclose users at this point.

Clones of the SPV C500 are becoming available on more mobile networks, including Cingular Wireless in the US and Telefonica Moviles in Spain and elsewhere. They also exist under several generic names, SIM free. Other similar devices are also coming to market, such as the T-Mobile SDA.