Synchronica licenses mobile gateway to leading emerging markets service provider Emircom

Emircom has offices across the MEA region in UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon and Pakistan and is one of the fastest growing systems integrators in the region.

Emircom will offer a hosted mobile email and synchronization service to businesses and prosumers in these countries through its Managed Services arm, M/s Telelogic.

The agreement brings together Synchronica's mobile email technology that works on standard handsets, with Emircom's in-depth knowledge of these countries' mobile email requirements.

The contract represents Synchronica's first ASP (Application Service Provider) win in the MEA region.

Emircom chose Synchronica's Mobile Gateway because it allows users to send and receive email securely and cost-effectively from mass-market handsets, without installing additional software on the device or behind the firewall.

It also supports a wide range of business and consumer email back-ends on the market including: Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail plus, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2007, Lotus Domino and Sun Communications Suite.

Informa predicts that there will be 4.81 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012, with the next billion subscribers coming from emerging markets, where PC and fixed-line penetration is low.

According to Informa's 'Middle East and Africa Mobile Opportunities and Forecast - 2007' report, the Middle East & Africa region is the fastest growing mobile market in the world.

A new report by Juniper Research (12 July 2008) projects that mobile revenues in the Middle East and Africa are set to hit $107 billion by 2013, with data services expected to make up 24 per cent of billed service revenue by 2013, compared to nine per cent today.

D.G.Roy, COO at Emircom comments: "Our customers are always looking for more efficient ways of working and we believe that offering them a cost-effective, highly secure hosted mobile email service will tick all the right boxes. We reviewed a number of mobile email products before selecting Synchronica's Mobile Gateway for its ease of deployment, its zero footprint architecture and its ability to work with virtually any phone in use today. We plan to start offering this secure, hosted, mobile email service to customers immediately".

Lindsey McDonald, ICT Analyst at Frost & Sullivan Africa, comments: "There's definitely a lot of interest in mobile email from companies and prosumers, and a service like this that does not require people to go out and buy expensive mobile phones makes a lot of sense. This partnership between Synchronica and Emircom will give businesses and prosumers in the Middle East, Africa and India a more affordable alternative to the BlackBerry."

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO at Synchronica, adds: "The relationship with Emircom unites our ground-breaking mobile email technology with their extensive knowledge of their markets' ICT requirements. The result will be a compelling hosted mobile email service that we are confident will prove popular in these developing markets."

Synchronica Mobile Gateway offers carrier-grade scalability and synchronizes contacts, tasks and calendars as well as delivering mobile push email using industry standards SyncML and IMAP.

It is suitable for both consumers and business users and supports a wide range of consumer and business back-end systems.