Mobile email comes of age
10 August 2006
Telecoms Special Features
The enterprise space has, thus far, been the nursery for mobile email. The promise for busy executives with increasingly sore thumbs, is that mobile email empowers employees to work more flexibly and more efficiently. But consumers have been watching and they want some of the action.
The shift towards the consumer market is best illustrated by the goings on in the US and is most likely explained by the fact that SMS never really took off there. Here in Europe, SMS is the messaging choice of the mobile consumer. Now though, US operators who missed the SMS boat are preparing themselves for a boom in mobile email market.
Consumers want more
James Hart, director of enterprise marketing EMEA at Research In Motion (RIM) believes the move to mobile email from SMS is a symptom of the consumer simply wanting more: "The majority of consumers rely on SMS from their mobile phones to keep in touch, but we think the consumer is becoming more demanding".
And while that demand is a natural progression from the use of SMS, it should not be overlooked that a key factor in the potential of mobile email is that, unlike several other "killer apps", people understand it. They also believe email is a technology that they must have on their mobile devices.
According to the 2005 edition of Informa Telecoms & Media's Mobile Messaging report, the evolution of the BlackBerry into a device that caters for both text and voice on a small footprint, has pushed email into the consumer domain.
The fact that email is perhaps the most widely used and recognised form of peer-to-peer messaging means operators will have little trouble explaining the concept to potential users.
"Users would like to see the messaging capabilities they have on a PC transferred to the mobile, and vice versa", said Yair Lavie, director of product management at messaging company, Comverse. "For the operators, integrated messaging is all about reducing churn, increasing data ARPU and reducing costs".
Tom Libretto, director of product management at Nokia said that while buying behaviour for email has traditionally centred on corporate users "most customers are specifically looking for email as a feature of their mobile device upgrade".
However, consumers are not the same as corporates and are dramatically more sensitive to price points of both the device and the services that come with it.
Libretto claims this is changing with devices which are becoming more powerful and cheaper. "The Nokia E50 is small, low priced and a value proposition for consumers," he said. "Really, the perception is that these devices are expensive, but many operators offer them for free on certain contracts" Libretto added.
Mobile email for everybody
Tempting consumers with attractive price points or "Impossible-to-Miss" offers will undoubtedly present something of a learning curve for operators keen to persuade new potential customers. Some companies such as IXI are introducing made-for-email devices, like the Ogo, which claims to be a budget alternative to the BlackBerry. This device, which is designed for email but does voice too, is already doing very well in Germany, has a following in Switzerland and is coming to the UK imminently, apparently.
To illustrate the dynamics of the afore-mentioned learning curve, a spokesman for mobile email provider, Visto, reckons that "designed-for-email" devices like the Ogo "are not for the average consumer". Instead, he argues, consumers would be more comfortable with a mobile phone that can do email.
The jury is out on that but Ari Backholm, vice president of products and marketing at Seven agrees: "Consumer email devices are not necessarily QWERTY devices. People access email with their existing feature phones and smart phones - and the latter is definitely moving down market" he added.
While consumers decide which form factor they prefer, several of the white label providers, along with big players like RIM and Microsoft, offer client software that can be installed on a number of different smartphone platforms. Rob Zuber, chief mobile strategist at mobile email provider Critical Path does not believe the solution is dedicated email devices: "On the contrary, we believe that mobile email will only succeed in the consumer space when it's easy to use on standard, everyday mobile phones".
That in mind, RIM is enabling handheld manufacturers like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson to offer BlackBerry connectivity on their handsets through "BlackBerry Connect".
Meanwhile Nokia, through its acquisition of Intellisync and partnerships with white label providers like Visto and Seven is offering email on myriad devices.
And then there's Microsoft's take on things, which, as you would expect, is slightly at odds with consensus. It argues the benefits of a mobile version of desktop software is the way to go. "Many vendors are making the phone do things it was not designed for, but Windows Mobile has these features built in" said Jason Langridge, mobility business manager at Microsoft UK.
Telecoms.com put Mr Langridge's theory to the test... but more of that later.
Expect to pay a premium
As far as operator service itself, there is a massive consumer marketplace. But again, cost is the principal obstacle to mass adoption, as many expect early email services to be premium to begin with.
Another barrier, according to Microsoft's Langridge is that "from the operators perspective, there is also the concern that mobile email is damaging SMS revenues. Of course SMS is incredibly profitable, but now we're offering a choice in messaging mediums".
Naturally, operators and service providers anticipate all consumers will come to expect mobile email access but they will have to pay for it at the start. More importantly is the fact that operators can buy mobile email as a white label product and brand it as their own, so they can be seen to be offering their own service.
Nokia's Libretto is upbeat about consumer attitudes and believes users are willing to pay for mobile email. Langridge agrees but believes operators will start to see significant adoption if it is pitched below £5/Eur3 per month. Bundled offerings and 3G data tariffs are also likely to have an effect and may even deflect concerns over users being charged to receive spam email.
In a nutshell, appropriate pricing for mobile email is the crucial difference between business and consumer usage.
Consumers do not have the same email response time or urgency needed in business. The enterprise user needs to answer all of his emails when they arrive but for the most part consumer email is not that urgent. In order to avoid sending each and every email to the consumer as it arrives, many providers allow the operator to bundle emails within a certain time period and then send the bundled emails to the consumer's phone.
Altenatively, it is left up to the user to instigate the downloading of emails, placing cost control firmly in their hands.That seems like a sensible way to keep costs to a minimum but another vital consideration is ease of use. As Seven's Backholm points out, "configuring a POP client on the device is not something an ordinary user can typically accomplish. At best, the service should only require the user to enter a username and a password and off they go".
Sounds simple but, as you will see in the following pages, making it work may require all consumers to have a physics degree prior to attempting configuration.
Email and beyond
And the consumer is noting that mobile email is only the tip of the iceberg of "lifestyle" applications. May personal organiser tools exist in both the corporate and consumer worlds, applications such as calendars, planners etc. which are increasingly the domain of players like Google, MSN and Yahoo! Each of these companies are pushing their own email systems across various platforms. In the very near future, integration with these providers and their email+ applications, will be key.
There are, of course, many regional markets, particularly in Europe, where Hotmail, Yahoo! and Google play second fiddle to local ISPs who have open access to the mailbox and provide email to the majority of consumers. Rob Zuber, chief mobile strategist at Critical Path believes it incumbent upon operators to understand their regional markets and offer a service that works with all the primary email providers in that market. "The consumer market is not so much about mobile email, but rather about mobilising their existing email" said RIM's Hart.
Beverly Wilks, communications manager at mobile email provider OZ, believes that having a consumer focused mobile email client "with a look and feel that mirrors the PC based ISP/Portal email experience, makes it easy for end users to stay connected with their favourite portal email service while eliminating the frustration that usually accompanies WAP based services".
Marketing a familiar interface and service may be something that all the providers can do well but with so many players spreading themselves across what is for all intents and purposes, three independent market segments - enterprise; mid/prosumer; and consumer - not all are expected to survive. Not least because there appears to be a significant amount of uncertainty among the players themselves against who they are competing. "Successful vendors in the consumer play are those who can combine the offering of operators, device manufacturers, ISPs and provide the necessary glue to make the user experience super-exciting for the end user, addressing their need to access both personal and work email" said Seven's Backholm.
Backholm believes that while RIM is expected to be competitive as a device manufacturer, it is not expected to reach consumer scale volumes. Meanwhile, Microsoft is anticipated to push solutions that help Exchange to succeed, and Nokia's key focus will be to take on Microsoft and RIM in the enterprise segment.
Critical Path has a similar vision, under the belief that RIM, Visto, Good, Seven, Microsoft and Nokia have all been primarily focused on enterprise solutions, while Critical Path is a pure consumer player.
Critical path's Zuber anticipates that RIM will hold its leadership in the enterprise segment, with Visto, Good and Seven serving the prosumer market.
Nevertheless, with the exception of Good, all the mobile email players interviewed by telecoms.com stated their intentions to take the fight to the consumer space, primarily as operator branded offerings. This suggests the mobile email arena could get scrappy in the very near future. Nokia was the only company to hint at potential consolidation in this space, with Libretto saying the company has not ruled more future acquisitions out.
Other articles in this Special Feature:
