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February 19, 2003
NEW SMARTNER OFFICE EXTENDER 3.0 SUPPORTS WIDEST VARIETY OF ACCESS DEVICES
Smartner, a leading provider of business mobility solutions, today announced the release of Office Extender 3.0 - the latest addition to its suite of mobile office products. Office Extender 3.0 enables both online and synchronized access to workgroup and email servers from all fixed and mobile devices, including the latest smartphones and PDAs. It is the world’s first synchronisation service for mobile office access where the SyncML server is offered as a hosted service by the operator or service provider, rather than having to be installed at the enterprise.
The Smartner Office Extender solution gives business people on the move easy and secure access to their email, calendar and contacts with enterprise servers, such as MS Exchange and Lotus Domino, located behind the company firewall. This newest version enables access to office information from virtually any device with synchronisation functionalities, thus enabling offline access to calendar appointments and contact details. Office Extender 3.0 can also be used with the same access methods as previous versions: mobile phones using WAP and SMS as well as through web interfaces in laptop PCs and PDAs. By extending its functionality and offering a wider choice of access devices, the solution allows operators to service a larger customer base and therefore offer a more comprehensive mobile office service.
"The key to offering a user-friendly and cost effective mobile office solution lies in ensuring it is easily deployable within the enterprise. Smartner covers the entire enterprise with a single solution, and allows operators to offer their customers the freedom to use whatever device they like - from existing handsets to the high-end smartphones now entering the market. Furthermore the use of existing devices lowers the total cost of ownership for a mobile office solution," said Ari Backholm, Vice President of Business Development at Smartner.
The Office Extender service requires no additional hardware or software at the enterprise customer location as the whole solution, including the SyncML server that enables offline access, is hosted by the operator. Office Extender Version 3.0 also features a new step-by-step configuration wizard which reduces deployment time for enterprises. Most importantly, the hosted service reduces time and management costs for enterprise customers. Instead the operator manages the networks and takes care of service upgrades as well as ensuring maximum end-to-end security.
Easy installation at the enterprises significantly reduces both the cost and length of the sales cycle, maximising the benefits of hosted solutions for operators and service providers. To further increase the take-up rate, Smartner is offering a hosting option with IBM for operators and service providers. In this business model, which was announced yesterday, IBM hosts the solution on behalf of the service provider in one of IBM’s e-business Hosting Centres. This hosted offering model enables the fastest entry to market while keeping risks and costs to a minimum.
Smartner’s mobile applications are already available on leading Vodafone Networks across Europe including Radiolinja (the Vodafone partner operator in Finland), Vodafone Ireland and Swisscom Mobile. The turn-key solution operates on GSM, GPRS and 3G networks, and runs on IBM WebSphere infrastructure middleware at the operator. It supports Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and 2000, Lotus Domino R5 and all POP3/IMAP4 email servers. Security of the solution is ensured by TLS secured connections, PKI certificates and user authentication based on operators’ network authentication services.
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