Features

Blackberry H1 Mobile E-Mail Market Share Down

By Sophia Mayengbam

Research in Motion’s (RIM) market share in the first half of 2006 dipped 5 points to 59 percent, however, the installed base of mobile email users is set to double this year, said research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics.

According to the research firm, the hottest area will be driven by two forces:

Traction among the 'Hosted Exchange Server' providers that control nearly a third of the business email market, and
The emergence of mobile email standards given the demonstrated ability of technology standards to build sustainable, innovative and highly competitive markets.

According to the research firm open mobile email standards and ASP traction are vital long-term trends.

The Wireless Enterprise Strategies report, "Open Standards and ASP Traction Threaten Visto, Intellisync & Seven's 19 percent 'Carrier White Label' Share of Mobile Email Market," cites OMA DS (Device Synch, formerly SynchML) and particularly P-IMAP / LEMONADE as crucial standards.

Cliff Raskind, Director of the firm's Wireless Enterprise Strategies service said that maturing open mobile email standards and notably more aggressive mobility plays among email ASP's will prove to be major catalysts in mobilising over 15 percent of business inboxes by 2009 and cutting today's USD 30-plus average revenue per unit (ARPU) in half.

The research firm said by wringing cost, complexity and IPR uncertainty of out of the solution delivery equation, it forecasts that ASP models and the advent of standards as critical, long-term enablers that will put a good mobile email well within reach of the average business user.

According to Strategy Analytics standard like Consilient, Synchronica and Funambol show significant upside potential in the long term. For the short to medium term the firm said that Mail2Web, MailStreet and 4Smartphone are among the email ASP's that will boost mobile email adoption.

Raskind projected that RIM should be able to protect its domain on the high end market if they continue to execute well.

Raskind said the trends and the forecast for the market shows that it represents a larger threat to Visto, Intellisync & Seven’s 19 percent ‘carrier white level’ share of the market.


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