When Microsoft's push comes to shove - vnunet.com

When Microsoft's push comes to shove - vnunet.com

Microsoft is adding "push Email" to Exchange 2003 and Windows Mobile 5.0 (though not until the end of the year). Depending on how Microsoft enable the push service it could be a boon for customers and a major dent to RIM (who make the Blackberry) who dominate the push email market with around 3 million units.

Many people don't know, but RIM actually make a large ammount of money from the GPRS traffic generated by push email. When a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) is installed in a company it sends the (encrypted) push to RIM over the Internet who then send it out to the mobile networks via their APN (access point name), conversely when a user sends Email or whatever on the Blackberry it makes a connection with the RIM APN and it then connects to the BES again via the Internet.

Since there's a lot of traffic going across the APN, RIM have a deal with the operators and they get a cut of the data traffic charges.

If a (medium size) company or ISP were to get an APN and connect to the operators then utilise the MS solution (if MS don't do the same as RIM) then the company or ISP can reap the benefits themselves or at least get cheaper data charges for their mobile users.