Product category:
ISPs and Hosted Services
News Release from: Microsoft | Subject: Hosted Messaging and Collaboration
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 16 February 2007
Hosted push E-Mail service and device
packages
Microsoft partners bring new services to market using hosted messaging and collaboration
Microsoft partners Dangaard Telecom, Carphone Warehouse Group and Nordic retailer ONOFF have announced their move into the "push" e-mail market for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and "pro-sumers" (early-adopter consumers) Using the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC), these partners will deliver mobile e-mail, packaged with a mobile device, to tap into the increasing demand for business e-mail on the go
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 19 Jul 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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For the mobile industry - from traditional to nontraditional mobile service providers and including operators, retailers and distributors - the HMC platform represents a significant opportunity to bring value-added services to market and generate new revenue.
"The demand for mobile data services from small businesses is still relatively untapped, and we're seeing the emergence of innovative new business models, based on our Hosted Messaging and Collaboration solution, to take advantage of this," said Michael O'Hara, general manager for the Communications Sector at Microsoft.
"Mobile phone retailers and distributors are constantly looking at ways to strengthen their established business models, and this provides them with an easy way to offer additional packaged services to their subscribers".
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Dangaard Telecom, Europe's largest value-added distributor, has announced a push e-mail service based on HMC, targeted indirectly at small businesses and early-adopter consumers.
The package, consisting of a Windows Mobile-based device with a Microsoft Office Outlook e-mail account, is available through strategic channel partners to customers in Norway and France.
"By enabling our partners to offer mobile e-mail, we are setting ourselves apart as a fully fledged go-to-market distributor for retailers, operators, systems integrators, value-added resellers and original equipment manufacturers who can exploit our international footprint and local market knowledge," said Frank Jensen, head of Corporate Smart Phones at Dangaard Telecom.
Dangaard's flexible pricing model gives partners a choice between offering a customised or co-branded package to customers.
In addition, through a unique Web portal, customers can instantly activate their newly purchased service at the point of sale or have it pre-configured on their device.
Carphone Warehouse Group, through its leading independent retailer The Phone House, plans to roll out its new hosted mobile e-mail service, The Phone House Mail, which is built on HMC, to 5 million consumer and small-business customers across Europe.
The program has been successfully piloted in Sweden and will be launched in Spain and the Netherlands at the end of March.
"We wanted to develop an offering for the small-business market that we could test and roll out quickly, with minimal infrastructure costs," said Daniel Lindholm, vice president of The Phone House Sweden.
"Hosted Messaging and Collaboration fulfilled this requirement by providing us with a robust, open platform on which we can combine profitable services offerings and gain a critical time-to-market advantage".
The Phone House Mail will be available through 1,300 retail stores across Europe or directly through Phone House's small-business sales force for three Euros per month.
Swedish infrastructure provider SmartHost will host the Exchange infrastructure for HMC and manage the maintenance and support of the e-mail service.
ONOFF, a leading Nordic retailer, and SmartHost, a white-label hosting service provider, have signed an agreement to deliver tailored push e-mail services to over 1 million SMB customers in Sweden, Finland and Estonia.
The new service, based on HMC, will cost as little as 10 Euro cents per day and will provide SMB customers with enterprise-class e-mail messaging, collaboration and real-time communications services combined with a Windows Mobile-based device.
"We chose SmartHost as a partner because of the breadth and depth of its expertise in managing hosted services, and chose Hosted Messaging and Collaboration for its flexibility and robustness," said Sten Schroder, CEO of ONOFF.
"This combination delivers a service that gives customers access to mobile features such as e-mail, calendar and contact information synchronisation".
"These features traditionally went beyond what private consumers and small businesses could afford and were previously only available to enterprise customers".
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