Synchronica, the international provider of next-generation mobile messaging solutions, today announced Mobile Gateway 6 introducing unified messaging capabilities, a presence-enabled address book, an ultra-lightweight J2ME client, support for xHTML browsers as well as advanced document transcoding capabilities.
Mobile Gateway continues to support literally any mobile phone in use today, providing push Email, synchronization, instant messaging and social networking even on low-end devices. The new Mobile Gateway 6 functionality adds an advanced user experience for feature phones and Smartphones.
New key features introduced with Mobile Gateway 6 include:
Standards-Based Gateway with Pre-RCS Functionality
Mobile Gateway combines a range of industry standards to deliver messaging via IMAP, SyncML, OMA CP and IMPS, providing the best possible user-experience on native device clients. Mobile Gateway 6 introduces advanced Pre-RCS features, providing interoperability and coexistence with RCS as well as a roadmap to IMS networks with full support for RCS and SIP SIMPLE IM.
Unified Inbox
A new unified inbox, introduced with Mobile Gateway 6, collects messages from multiple communities and consolidates them into a single inbox, providing a “social stream” independent of the communication method and sorted by time. The unified inbox enables simultaneous conversations across multiple communities and channels – including phone calls, SMS, Email, Instant Messaging and Social Networking.
Presence Enabled Address Book
Mobile Gateway 6 synchronizes and aggregates contacts of IM, Social Networking and Email into a Presence Enabled Address Book. It allows users to see profile pictures, status messages, and online presence status of their entire contacts network in a single view. Based on the presence status, users can then decide to initiate a chat, send Emails or place a phone call directly from the address book.
Ultra-Lightweight Clients
New ultra-lightweight J2ME clients introduced with Mobile Gateway 6 support a wide range of entry-level and premium mobile phones. With a footprint of just 160k, applications are executed on the server, while the clients simply render the user interface. This allows functionality of the applications to be enhanced and modified without requiring the user to download an updated version.
Advanced Attachment Handling
Mobile Gateway 6 incorporates patented content adaptation and transcoding technology, providing data-efficient access to complex Email attachments, including support for complex office documents such as PDF and Microsoft Word as well as a variety of image and video formats. Instead of downloading the attachments, they are transcoded on the server and streamed to the user’s mobile browser, reducing network bandwidth consumption by up to 90%.
One-Stop Solution for Next-Generation Mobile Messaging
Mobile Gateway provides carrier-grade mobile messaging to literally any mobile phone in use today, using established technologies such as SMS, MMS and WAP Push for basic handsets, as well as industry standard IMPS, XMPP, IMAP and ActiveSync for mid- to high-end handsets.
The new Pre-RCS capability of Mobile Gateway 6 combines the complete functionality of Mobile Gateway in a single integrated and brandable client, while the new advanced document transcoding engine dramatically reduces network bandwidth consumption.
Mobile Gateway is a one-stop solution for operators and device manufacturers planning to introduce advanced mobile messaging services. It synchronizes consumer and business Email accounts and connects users to popular Instant Messaging communities such as GoogleTalk and Facebook Chat; and key Social Networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In. Synchronica messaging products have been chosen by more than 80 mobile operators and 8 device manufacturers worldwide.
Outlook and Market Development
The UMTS forum expects that by 2016, there will be at least one billion consumer devices connected to mobile broadband, fuelled in part by exponential growth of Social Networking Services such as Twitter and Facebook. At the same time, mobile Email and Instant Messaging continue to grow at rapid pace, in particular in the mass-market. Comscore reports an increase of 36% in mobile Email usage in the US, where in 2010, 70 million (30%) of all mobile users accessed Email from mobile devices, while 17% were using mobile instant messaging services.
The future of mobile messaging will increasingly be in unified toolkits that converge text and multimedia messages, IM chats, emails and voicemails, according to ABI Research. They estimate that the revenue from mobile instant messaging services will increase to US$212 billion by 2013, up from US$105 billion in 2009.
Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, comments: “Mobile Gateway provides a one-stop solution for next-generation mobile messaging to the entire device landscape. Now, we are providing advanced features on Smartphones to really take full advantage of the capabilities of these devices. For many vendors, RCS is a just distant concept; but with Mobile Gateway 6, it becomes reality here and now. Synchronica is now ideally positioned to cater to the requirements of both mobile operators and device manufacturers in emerging and developed markets alike.”