Oct/Nov 2008

Following Nokia's announcement in September that it is pulling out of what it terms 'behind-the-firewall business mobility solutions', CommonTime, a mobile messaging and Lotus Notes specialist, has been quick to offer customers an alternative.

It says it will offer Nokia Intellisync customers a free upgrade to its mSuite5 product for the duration of their Intellisync maintenance period. The offer includes centralised device management policy enforcement for mobile messaging and line of business applications.

Intellisync was acquired by Nokia only three years ago for an estimated $430 million. However, the company says it now wants to focus on bringing best-in-class devices and solutions to market via strategic relationships with leading enterprise technology vendors. It talks about combining Nokia devices and applications with software solutions from industry leading enterprise vendors such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco.

Resources previously allocated to these activities will be switched to Nokia's new consumer push e-mail service. Nokia also says it is disposing of its security appliances business.

* CommonTime's mSuite5 is said to support all PDAs, Pocket PCs and smartphones running Windows Mobile or Symbian S60 third edition software, including Nokia's new E and N Series.