Mobile Email – The definitive guide

That mid to high-end phone or PDA which you use only to phone and SMS may well have a suite of advanced communication tools, currently going unused.

Those running the Windows Mobile operating system offer a particularly rich mobile email environment – many of the advanced Outlook features available on a desktop or laptop are there, albeit with slightly reduced functionality. For mobile phones that are merely email-capable, the email address and subject header is viewed with a few lines of the body copy of the email text. Users then decide what emails they will view or download to the mobile device (more later on how this happens).

Another common myth around mobile email is that a mobile device will need an email address different to a user’s standard email address. With these modern devices the idea is to provide access to both business and personal email on the move without causing more confusion. Mobile network providers may well issue you with an email account (i.e. myaccount@vodafonemobile.net) however those with an existing email address will have no real need to use them.

The best mobile email devices are those that allow the user to see and use email as they want to. Blackberry devices and Windows Mobile are most suited for users who want a rich email experience, empowered with workflow and time management functionality previously only found on your desktop.  Windows Mobile based devices also come pre-loaded with Microsoft Mobile Office – a mini version of the popular desktop Office suite.

However, many new mobile phones which include Blackberry devices, can also view an attached word document, PowerPoint presentation or PDF – and depending on the device and software, these may be able to be edited even if the device doesn’t run Windows Mobile.

If you need help choosing the right mobile email device, it pays to ask. Some mobile networks have data specialists in their retail stores, however due to sales commissions their opinions may be tinted. Independent mobile business specialists will be able to give unbiased help based on your requirements.

That depends on where the email is hosted. If a person’s email is hosted by an ISP, then as long as the ISP supports mobile access, email can be viewed as it sits on the ISP’s server by logging on to the web mail account using the phone’s browser, or downloaded to the mobile device if that’s what the user wants to do with it.

The big question to ask is;

“What happens to the email once it is downloaded to a mobile device?”

For example, if you download an email to your mobile device, is it then deleted from the server? If not, will it download to your desktop email client in the normal way later even though you have already read it? And if you send an email from your mobile device, do you have to copy it to the sent folder on your desktop email client manually?

Answers to the above questions depend on the type of technology the email host is using. Most use the Post Office Protocol (POP) email protocol. Unfortunately, POP email does just that; it pops an email into your mobile device when you download it from the email provider’s server and deletes it at the host or ISP end. (You can opt to leave deleted email on a POP host server, but the provider will usually put a line through it to show it has been downloaded or deleted. It then may, or may not, depending on the ISP, be downloaded in its original form to another device like a desktop client later.)

Either way, the host server has no idea what a mobile user has done to an email once the email is “popped” from the server to the mobile device. If the email has been read or replied to and you want a record of it on your desktop email client, you will have to copy email from your mobile device back to your email address in order for the new communication to be recorded on your desktop email client. The whole process is clunky, unproductive and time consuming and you run the risk of forgetting to copy crucial information stored in your mobile device back to your desktop email client. POP therefore is an inefficient protocol for business mobile email solutions.

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) allows you to keep email messages stored on the hosted server and create and move folders or mailboxes, delete messages, or search for certain parts of a message – all from the server. Because the work you do on your email is not stored on your mobile device, you stay connected to the host’s server through your mobile data network provider, and the host server alerts your mobile device to new email as it arrives.

IMAP provides the same email view between all devices and all email actions are synchronised. So IMAP email opened, read and forwarded from a mobile device shows as read and forwarded on the host server. If you reply to an email from the mobile device, the reply will be in the sent folder of the email client on the host server. IMAP is a far more efficient way of managing email than POP.

Hosted Exchange provides all the benefits of an IMAP email service plus much more. It enables users to collaborate through a comprehensive, integrated system, with collaborative features that give a business a competitive advantage over standard POP3.

In addition to the benefits of email delivery over traditional POP, Hosted Exchange also provides mobile access and 2-way synchronisation of contacts, tasks and calendars. All the advanced features of Microsoft Outlook on your desktop, available on the move via a mobile device. Those running Windows Mobile have ‘Active Sync’ installed – the protocol used to communicate with the exchange server and keep the device synchronised. Windows Mobile 5.0 saw the introduction of ‘Direct Push’, giving users instant delivery of email and changes to contacts, calendar and tasks. Many new Sony Eriksson phones have Active Sync installed as standard and there are other 3^rd party applications that can be installed on Java based devices to provide the same functionality.

The advantages of Hosted Exchange include, automated virus scans, spam filtering and the all-important backups; a task few small businesses do regularly enough. If a device is lost or damaged, all the contacts, email and calendar are on a hosted server that is regularly backed up. Simply replace the device and get all the information back because the phone is not the main store for the email and contact details.

Date: Jul 20 2007 9:33AM
Category: BUSINESS EDITORIAL