Tunbridge Wells, UK-based Synchronica started life in the SyncML space, but earlier this year added support for IMAP, implementing the License to Enhanced Mobile Oriented And Diverse Endpoints (LEMONADE) spec to enable it to offer push email as well as calendar and contacts info synching. That is, of course, consumer push email/webmail, rather than the corporate variety delivered most famously by RIM with its BlackBerry service, but also by Good Technology (now Motorola) and Intellisync (now Nokia), all of which use proprietary protocols to achieve the push feature.

Two flavors of LEMONADE

Within the LEMONADE standard, explained Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, there is in fact support for two ways to carry out push, each with its own pros and cons, and each with its own set of stakeholders, as he put it. One is IMAP IDLE, which establishes a continual session between server and device and thus can forward the email as soon as it arrives at the server and the device is in coverage.

The other is OMA EMN, in which the handset dozes until the server, receiving an email for that subscriber, sends it an SMS (transparently to the user) in order to wake it up to receive.

IMAP IDLE is popular with ISPs, ASPs and enterprises, because it does not entail the cost of all those SMS messages, said Brinkschulte. EMN doesn’t suit them, but the mobile operators love it, because IMAP IDLR maintains an always-on connection to the GPRS base station, which has a cost implication for them, as well as a potential bandwidth issue if mobile email ramps up in the consumer market.

The first iteration of Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway to offer push email, which was launched in February, supported IMAP IDLE, but we sell into both communities, so now we’re adding OMA EMN, said the CEO.

Java moves by Visto and Seven

The ISVs that provide push email to carriers on a white label basis for them to brand as their own alternatives to the BlackBerry service for mobilizing corporate email, i.e. Visto and Seven, have also spoken of going more into the mass market, developing versions of their products in Java that can run on feature rather than smart phones. Brinkschulte pooh-poohed these initiatives, however, arguing that they are still based on proprietary protocols, and thus represent tie-ins.

There are a couple of issues with Java, he argued. Firstly, it runs in a sandbox and so can’t access the underlying data structures on the devices, and second, the usability is horrible, requiring the user to open the Java app just to check their email, while the calendar is inferior to what’s burnt into the phone’s ROM by the manufacturer. He added that Java is great for multi-player games and gadgets, but not for everyday apps. It’s an excuse from the proprietary protocol guys to say they can do consumer.

MDM rewrite

Synchronica is the result of a German privatey-held sync developer merging with a listed UK mobile device management (MDM) vendor, DAT Group, in 2005, and the company’s dramatic fall in revenue last year and reduction of headcount by almost half have led industry observers to speculate that it may have become an acquisition target, or will do if the slide continues.

Brinkschulte was nonetheless upbeat about the company’s prospects, noting that we’re starting to see RFPs from carriers for consumer push Webmail, where previously they’re been all for business. His optimism was not only about the sync/push email server that is currently the mainstay of its revenue. Synchronica continues to sell its Mobile Manager Enterprise server for MDM and claims to have just signed a deal with the UK arm of a global corporation.

However, in its current form that product runs only on the Windows platform and is not compliant with the OMA DM standard, which means it is currently restricted to working with its own clients, when there is an increasing tendency for handset manufacturers to embed standards-based OMA DM clients on their phones.

Both those shortcomings are now being addressed with a major rewrite of the product, which is moving it to Java, enabling it to run on Windows, Unix or Linux, as well as becoming OMA DM compliant. At that point it will be able to work with the leading clients in the market, which come from Red Bend, InnoPath and Bitfone (now HP). In the long term we don’t want to have a client of our own at all, said Brinkschulte.