RIM, Symbian Partner on Mobile E-mail
Mobile email is the first critical application that carriers and handset makers must get right for enterprise and consumer wireless data adoption. Wireless web browsing, MMS, and other services are nice-to-haves, but more and more people are growing dependent on their email. The first company to get email right is RIM with their Blackberry platform. We’ve argued many times before that RIM needs to focus less on hardware and more on getting its software out there. While they haven’t given up on the hardware, they are doing a good job expanding the reach of their software. The latest deal is a partnership with Symbian to support Blackberry email service on Symbian devices. This is natural follow up to RIM’s licensing agreement with Nokia who is one of the main Symbian consortium members. Even with Symbian’s big backer it’s playing catch up with Microsoft in the smartphone game (not a good position to be in). But with this RIM partnership in place and Symbian phones finally hitting the market they are still in the game. For now.
