Synchronica Introduces Next-Generation Messaging, Adding Mobile Social Networking and Mobile Instant Messaging for Mass Market Devices

Synchronica plc, the international provider of next-generation mobile messaging services, today announced Mobile Gateway 5, a complete mobile messaging suite that enables operators to offer push email and synchronization, instant messaging (IM), social networking services (SNS), and web feeds to consumers and business users regardless of the handset they use.

Mobile Gateway 5 enables operators to provide a broad range of mobile messaging services from a single platform aimed at increasing data usage and subscriber loyalty. Mobile Gateway enables users to connect to existing internet communities, such as Facebook, Gmail, Google Talk, and web feeds, driving traffic and user uptake, but also enables operators to create their own email and instant messaging communities, creating the stickiness that reduces churn.

Based entirely on open industry standards, Mobile Gateway 5 is a clientless solution which works on virtually any handset in use today, ensuring fast take-up in a large addressable market.

New key features introduced with Mobile Gateway 5 include:

Mobile instant messaging - Mobile Gateway 5 enables users to connect to their existing IM services, such as Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, AIM, Google Talk, and Facebook Chat. To encourage subscriber loyalty, operators can also offer their users a carrier-hosted IM community to chat, send pictures, and see others' status. Mobile Gateway 5 enables aggregation of up to five IM accounts and leverages the built-in IMPS client of most mobile phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and other manufacturers and provides a downloadable IMPS client for J2ME-enabled handsets.

Mobile SNS - Mobile Gateway provides clientless push SNS for a wide range of popular social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to the built-in email clients of smartphones and mass market feature phones. Mobile Gateway even extends social networking to entry-level phones by sending feeds and status updates as MMS or SMS.

Web feeds - Mobile Gateway 5 allows users to subscribe to live web feeds from a list of operator-defined news feeds (e.g. ESPN, BBC, Al Jazeera), as well as from any RSS-enabled site of personal or business interest. Updates are pushed automatically as emails into a separate mailbox on any phone supporting the IMAP and OMA EMN or ActiveSync industry standards. On entry-level phones, Mobile Gateway sends web feeds as an SMS or MMS including text and pictures.

The email-to-SMS, email-to-MMS, and push-to-WAP gateways of Mobile Gateway 5 connect literally any phone to email, IM, and SNS - ideal for emerging markets where PC-based access remains limited and entry-level devices continue to dominate. The carrier-grade solution delivers mobile email, IM, web feeds, and SNS through established technologies, such as SMS and MMS for basic handsets, as well as via the industry standard IMPS, IMAP, and ActiveSync for mid-to high-end handsets.

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, comments: "With Mobile Gateway 5, we are providing a one-stop solution for next-generation mobile messaging. While our competitors are busy replicating the social network sites with proprietary clients for a rather limited number of high-end devices, we are using a clientless, industry standards-based approach to connect users to email, IM, SNS, and web feeds - offering a true mass market solution with the largest possible addressable market and service uptake. Mobile Gateway 5 provides operators in particular in emerging markets with a solution that can significantly increase revenues from data traffic and can help to combat the number one problem - churn."