Nokia starts push e-mail service, takes on BlackBerry

World leader Nokia launched an e-mail service that will compete with the corporate mail service of the kind on BlackBerry devices offered by Research In Motion.

In a handset market where mobile customers want more convenience in staying connected, world leader Nokia on Wednesday launched an e-mail service that will compete with the corporate mail service of the kind on BlackBerry devices offered by Research In Motion.

HT Image

For customers, this will mean an assured e-mail service that will “push” mails from network computers into the handset, unlike the current “pull” models that involve downloading mail. For Nokia it is a service offering that can get it regular fee payments.

Branded as Nokia Messaging, the push mail service will allow users to configure up to 16 e-mail accounts on a single handset including corporate mail accounts.

“We are not targeting 100 per cent of our users with this messaging solution but only users of our high-end devices at present,” said Vineet Taneja, director, marketing, Nokia India.

The mail application can currently be downloaded free from www.email.nokia.com for a trial of personal mail services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail but a complete package of personal and corporate mail will come pre-installed only on Nokia E75 that was also launched on Wednesday.

A paid for version of the service is likely to be announced after two months once the service is extended to other high-end phones, followed by its availability on lower-end handsets priced under Rs 5,000 by the year-end.

Nokia is optimistic that even with a price tag the service will sell in a competitive market in which there are free push mail applications like Emoze and Mobiquus, because of service quality.