| An open source cure for BlackBerry's woes? |
Feb. 10, 2006
If BlackBerry maker RIM Research in Motion has to shut down its over-the-air email service because of its legal battles with intellectual property-holding company NTP, the open-source wireless email company Funambol may be able to keep Blackberries working.
The latest beta version of its software for carriers and enterprises, Funambol 3, can push email to many portable phone and email devices, including Blackberries.
Funambol, formerly Sync4j, is an open source mobile application server that provides PIM (push email, address book and calendar data synchronization, application provisioning, and device management for wireless devices and PCs. The program suite is built on top of the OMA DS and DM (Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization and Device Management) protocols. These protocols are better known by their older name SyncML.
With this support, the company has stated that the program can work with any SyncML-compliant device and other devices such as the BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) devices, and WAP (wireless access protocol)-enabled phones.
On the mail server side, the company claims that the new program can work with Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Domino, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), and POP (Post Office Protocol) servers.
"Open source software and standards will accelerate mobile email deployments, increase revenue opportunities for carriers and give enterprises more flexibility," said Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol in a statement.
"We believe that mobile email will quickly become a commodity, so open source is the natural approach to this market place. With Funambol v3, we deliver the benefits of open source software to our customers -- code where every line is scrutinized and tested and access to largest mobile QA group in the world."
For many companies, mobile email has already become a commodity, a necessary one.
As Scott Bolser, an analyst for email and IM research house Ferris Research recently pointed out, "Funambol's V3 product might be an alternative solution for those organizations where RIM devices are deeply entrenched. It is not cost-effective for an organization with a large RIM deployment to simply throw away BlackBerry devices and move to another solution. Funambol's adoption of open source software and the ability to support RIM devices is worth a look for organizations evaluating RIM contingency plans."
The beta V3 server software is now available for both Windows and Linux. Clients are also now available for Outlook, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm, and iPod.
Like MySQL and SugarCRM, Funambol uses a dual-licensing approach. The source code is available under either the GPL or a commercial license. With the commercial license, the program comes with support, documentation, consulting services, and intellectual property indemnification.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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