Push email possibilities

dahamsta

What are the possibilities in Ireland? Am I tied to a network or can I run my own server? If the latter, am I tied to a proprietary vendor or are there OSS solutions out there? What handsets are the berries, and which ones suck?

Thanks,
adam

Urban Weigl

I personally use O2's i-mail service on a Sony Ericsson K610i. I've found this to be the most cost effective solution for me, and have simply set up my Gmail account to forward to my i-mail address.

Receiving messages is free, and sending messages costs 15 cent. There are no roaming charges, and it works really well; email arrives within a few seconds usually, and I can even attach 2 megapixel images without any problems.

elderlemon

I'd say stay well away from anything that ties you to a network. I have an E61 (nokia) and use Microsoft mail 4 exchange which is free from Mail2web.com. There are other solutions - Good mail, Intellisync, Goodlink, Seven Always on all available from 3rd parties. Blackberry is available on the E61 and other handsets but this has to come from your operator and doesn't give you anything that other solutions dont.

All you need from your operator is a data package - I have 25mb for €15 and it works well for my needs.

dahamsta wrote:

What are the possibilities in Ireland? Am I tied to a network or can I run my own server? If the latter, am I tied to a proprietary vendor or are there OSS solutions out there? What handsets are the berries, and which ones suck?

Thanks,
adam

dahamsta

Aren't the server-side components of all of those very expensive though?

adam

CiaranC

It comes as part of exchange 2K3 SP2.

dahamsta

I don't run exchange. I'm really looking for an SME solution, single-user even, hence the OSS query.

adam

dohouch

elderlemon wrote:

All you need from your operator is a data package - I have 25mb for €15 and it works well for my needs.

Sorry to bother you, just one word. Which Irish mobile phone operator supplies data package 25mb=€15 ???

CiaranC

These guys do a 'personal edition'

http://visto.com/products/VMPE.html

Dont know of any OSS solution. Let us know if you come across one.

elderlemon

Voda. Its the "using your phone as a modem" thingy (I think).

dohouch wrote:

Sorry to bother you, just one word. Which Irish mobile phone operator supplies data package 25mb=€15 ???

dahamsta

CiaranC wrote:

These guys do a 'personal edition'

Only via an operator though, unfortunately.

Dont know of any OSS solution. Let us know if you come across one.

Will do.

richieg

Do 3 offer any form of push email service?

Is it only blackberry that can push pop mail accounts and mail from your desktop (via redirector)?

ronan675

At the moment the top players in the push mail market are RIM (blackberry) and Microsoft (windows mobile). I have used both solutions in the past and am currently using a v1605 windows mobile pda from vodafone with Microsofts direct push & exchange server. I have also used blackberry for a number of years.

Both devices provide push email but they are quite different. Blackberries are really only designed for email / phone and only recently have become more consumer oriented with the launch of the blackberry pearl e.g music, cameras, video etc. Saying that blackberries are rock solid and are generally extremely reliable. The same can't really be said for Windows Mobile powered devices but Windows Mobile PDA's are far more powerful in terms of the number of applications that can be installed and the multimedia features they offer.

As regards blacberry a single user you could setup a blackberry with the BlackBerry Internet Service. Both o2 and voda offer this service for around €20-€25 per month with no data restrictions. After purchasing a device you will be given a blackberry email address e.g email@o2mail.ie. Anything sent to this address will immediately be forwarded to your blackberry.

So you can then just forward your existing email accounts to this address using whatever mail server software you wish. I used this solution for a number of years and it works quite well. The only disadvantage is that your email is not synchronized with your mailbox. For example if you read a message on your blackberry it will still remain unread on your mailbox when you view it from a P.C. If you need syncronisation you need to have a BES (blackberry enterprise server). This is expensive and quite complicated to setup and install as it runs on top of exchange. You can however signup for a hosted exchange account from a number of providers. I have heard good things about ExchangeMyMail.com.

The other option is to purchase a Windows mobile pda and either use the built in IMAP4 / POP3 mail reader or setup direct push. To use Microsofts direct push you need exchange so you would need to signup for a hosted exchange account like I mentioned above.

I am currently quite happy with the WM5 device as I can do a lot more with it compared to my blackberry. For example it has wifi, 3g etc. I can even install skype on it.

That's all I can think of at the moment but if you have any other questions I will do my best to answer

dahamsta

Loads of info there ronan675, thanks for taking the time.

One of the problems I see with the provider-tied solutions is that you're tied to an address, and if it gets into a spam list there's a risk you're going to get a ton of junk into a mailbox that wants the exact opposite: focussed, filtered mail only available to a select set of users. Of course you can filter via an account of your own, but if you reply using your Blackberry address and it gets into address books, one of them is going to be compromised, and your address is out.

Once it's out, you can never get it back; whereas if you control addressing, you can just assign another address. Sync is another issue, as you outlined, but it strikes me that it's the kind of thing that'll get 'fixed', so I'd be willing to put up with it for the small quantity of mail I'd receive on my device.

I do have a couple of questions. First of all, is the €25 fee for Blackberry standalone or is it on top of a contract? Secondly, have you tried the Pearl and if so what did you think? And thirdly, if I chose the Windows + Exchange route, do I need a data plan too?

BTW, posting an address on a forum is another surefire way to get into the lists, any chance you could remove the address above, just in case I decide to go with Blackberry later?

adam

ronan675

The blackberry fee is standalone. When I had my blackberry with o2 I was charged €20 per month + vat. That was the total bill. There was no additional line rental although I was told at the time of purchase that if I wanted phone functionality I would need to signup for a voice plan. I never did this but I was still able to make / receive calls and the standard per minute charges just got added to my bill depending on how many calls I made. However I never really used the BB extensively as a phone as it was just used as my email / data device so I assume o2 would have contacted me and wanted their line rental if I had continued using it for calls.

I have not personally used the pearl but I know some people who have used it and they seem quite happy. One thing to note however is the fact that it does not have a full qwerty keyboard. This may be an issue depending on the amount of email you need to reply to from the device. It uses a technology called suretype which is similar to t9 on normal mobiles. If you need a full qwerty keyboard you would be better off looking at the 8700g or the 3g equivalent the 8707v. The latter is exclusive to vodafone. I have also heard that a new blackberry with features similar to the pearl is supposedly going to be released soon in the 8700 form factor. Not sure when but it's on the way.

Regarding the blackberry email address. I avoided spam issues with my o2mail address by keeping it completely secret. I never gave it out or signed up to anything using that email address for the exact reasons you listed. I just setup an alias on my mail server to forward to the address in question. Also replying to messages is not a problem as you can configure the reply to address on the BIS (blackberry internet service) webmail site to an address of your choosing. That means nobody will ever see your "real" blackberry address.

Yes you will need a dataplan if you go with a Windows mobile device. Currently vodafone offer two data options for windows mobile devices one is €12 for 25mb and the other is €20 for 50mb. It does not sound like much data but the pda's are quite efficient at managing data so it's not been an issue for me.

Oops sorry about the email address. I have edited the post. Was not really thinking when I posted but I know exactly what you mean. Address harvesting bots are a real pain.

Urban Weigl

With i-mode push email at least, you can change your email address as often as you like, free of charge. You'll get an address ending in @o2imail.ie. You can also have filters set up to only accept mail from certain domains.

So for example, you could set it up to only accept mail from sme.ie.

dahamsta

Thanks again for such a detailed response ronan675, I really appreciate it.

Thanks to you for that info too Urban.

adam

elderlemon

Just a quick followup to Ronans reply - You don't need a blackberry handset to get blackberry service, nor do you need to have a windows mobile device to get MS exchange mail. There's a lot of handsets on the market that support these mail services as well as Imap and pop.

trev44

thanks for all the info..
i have exchange server running behing a firewall and also have an O2 xda exec. is there much work in setting up push email for the XDA (i have beginner/medium exchange skills) or should i get the experts in?
also what happens when you go abroad?

richieg

I thought the idea with Blackberry was that you access the blackberry website (or something like that) add you pop mail addresses to your account and they automatically get sent to the handset (and it works both ways) rather than having to set up a rule that all mail in your pop mail account is forwarded to another account (O2 account) and then to your handset.

Does redirector work with O2 so that mail from your desktop gets sent to the blackberry?

CiaranC

trev44 wrote:

thanks for all the info..
i have exchange server running behing a firewall and also have an O2 xda exec. is there much work in setting up push email for the XDA (i have beginner/medium exchange skills) or should i get the experts in?
also what happens when you go abroad?

Its straightforward enough. Using it over SSL is a little more involved.

As long as your handset can roam, it works as normal abroad.

trev44

i have all the hardware so i will try to get it up and running in the next 2 weeks and then let yawll know how i get on