By Mark Yeong

Push e-mail has been the buzzword of this decade and widely popularized by business-enabled handsets from Blackberry. Over time, push functionality has come to be commonly associated with work and businesses, primarily due to its ability to “immediately” inform users of new information. In this case, e-mails. However this is starting to evolve and the use of “push” has stretched beyond the business sector and even now to the everyday consumer.

But what is “push” and why is it so popular with businesses? Think about current day snail mail delivery services. There are the local postal services which drop off you mail in the mailbox and then there are the delivery services (FedEx and DHL), which deliver the mail right to your hands.

Mail from the local postal service will require the user to go to the mailbox multiple times to check for new items and will not be informed if a mail has been sent. As such, in order to retrieve a letter, the user will just have to keep checking till the mail arrives in the mailbox. But with “push”, it acts like a courier delivery service where you are informed that you have mail and delivered to the user location.

So the advantage of push is that you are promptly informed that new mail has arrived as opposed to having poll the mailbox continuously to check for mail.

Weapon of Choice

In order to engage in push mail services, you will need a mobile handset that is capable of handling push notifications.

Most of the newer Nokia handsets are capable of handling push mail via the Nokia Messaging application installed in the handset. Nokia offers a wide variety of handsets to meet the needs of different users. These handsets include the N series for those that require anything and everything on the go, Xpressmusic for music lovers and of course not forgetting the E series for the busy executives.

On the other hand all Blackberry handsets come with push e-mail capabilities built in and to use this you just have to subscribe to the Blackberry Internet Service offered by the local telecommunications providers. However, such handsets are more business focused.

The Messaging Services

Nokia offers an equivalent of the Blackberry Internet Services called Nokia Messaging and both are capable of pushing e-mails to your mobile phones. But what are the differences between these two services?

With Nokia Messaging, users can define up to 10 e-mail accounts to be pushed to their handsets. Some of the more popular mail protocols that are supported includes the following:

•    Yahoo! Mail
•    Google Mail
•    Windows Live Hotmail
•    Ovi Mail
•    POP/IMAP email accounts
•    Google Apps
•    Yahoo! Small Business
•    Other vanity domain email accounts

The other thing about Nokia Messaging is that it belongs to an independent provider. Users can continue using the service even after changing their network provider.

Blackberry Internet Services is provided by the local telecommunication companies and lets the user aggregate various e-mail feeds to be pushed to Blackberry handset. This service is service provider specific and users will usually have to reconfigure their Blackberry Internet Service if they were to change a service provider. This service supports most mail protocols and include the following:

•    Post Office Protocol (POP)
•    Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
•    Windows Live™ Hotmail®
•    Microsoft® MSN®
•    AOL®
•    CompuServe®
•    Gmail®
•    Yahoo!® Mail
•    Microsoft® Outlook® Web Access enabled account

To cater to enterprise needs, Blackberry provides an enterprise solution. The Blackberry Enterprise Server allows enterprise mail solutions namely IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise.

Final Message

Personally I think Blackberry phones are great (good design and interface). But at times, my needs for my mobile device extend beyond just business. Nokia steps in with a wider choice of handsets which are Nokia Messaging capable.

With very similar protocol support, I’m more for the convenience of Nokia messaging, as it’s not provider specific and allows me the flexibility to change service providers when I want.

Finally who does not like offers? Local service providers like M1 are giving Nokia Messaging free for a year if you subscribe to their SunSurf Lite plan. Nokia is also giving away lifetime license with purchase of selected handsets (e.g. Nokia E75).