3GSM Hot Topic: MSFT To Attack RIM With New Email Solution
Lots of news and ink being spilled at the show about the Microsoft launching its push email service to compete with Blackberry. Steve Ballmer addressed the conference about the email strategy, among other MSFT mobile plays. The MSFT solution requires Exchange server 2003, supplemented with ActiveSync 5.0. In this configuration, the need for a separate server co-located with the exchange box (as RIM does it) is negated. This potentially lowers the TCO of a mobile email solution. This MSFT attack and similar moves by Nokia, Good, Visto, etc – not the NTP lawsuit – are the real threat to RIM. But with the repeated “announcement” of push mail, MSFT is reminding us of the Nokia N-Gage launch, which seemed to happen about 5 times. Let’s start hearing about adoption rates instead of re-launches.
