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Competitors look to take on MobileMe for iPhone

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

August 28, 2008, 3:29 PM

In light of problems that plagued Apple's new e-mail synchronization service since its launch, it may soon have to fight third-party providers that are setting their sights on providing their own "push" services for iPhone.

The first of two potentially major MobileMe alternatives actually comes from one of Apple's partners for the iPhone, Yahoo. Its subsidiary Zimbra said Thursday that it had released a version of its application for the iPhone 2.0.

Like MobileMe, Zimbra for iPhone will offer over-the-air synchronization of e-mail, calendars, and contacts. In addition, Zimbra for iPhone also syncs photos, so that the iPhone's contact list can stay up-to-date with contacts' recent photographs.

Zimbra software is already used on other brands of mobile devices, including Windows Mobile devices, Palm Treos, Nokia E-series phones, and BlackBerry devices. Just as for these devices, the syncing for the iPhone version is controlled by the Zimbra Collaboration Suite, which uses ActiveSync.

Zimbra functions can either be used through the iPhone's Safari browser, or in the iPhone's built-in applications themselves. It produces an open source version, which is free; the commercial edition comes with a 60-day free trial, with annual license fees beginning at $500.

While Zimbra seems more directed at the business and enterprise set, a hosted service from MailPronto may be more suitable for consumers. Its service is hosted by a Microsoft Exchange server that syncs with iPhones at a cost of $8.95 per month per mailbox, with each mailbox storing up to 2 GB.

In addition, MailPronto will also store calendar and contact information on the server, which would mean it will basically offer the same lineup of features as MobileMe does.

Neither service seems to match up feature-for-feature with MobileMe, at least not yet. Neither offers storage space for files like Apple's service does, nor do they provide space to store online albums or multimedia. Thus it could be argued that, even with its faults, Apple's service still remains the better deal at $99 per year.

Add a Comment (6 Comments)

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By lileoj

posted Aug 29, 2008 - 7:24 AM

I use app4rent.com for Hosted exchange and LEMME TELL YA. ITS 9837298752857528 times better than Mobile(broken)me. AND its only 6.95 a month and I forward all my hotmail email to it =). So instead of ONLY push email and 15 min calender contact syncs (THAT NEVER FREAKIN WORKED FOR ME ON MOBILE ME!!) I get TRUE push email, contacts, and calenders. AND its cheaper than mobileme!! (FYI I got a refund on mobileme it was soooo bad)

Score: 0

By Apps4rent

edited Sep 15, 2008 - 6:19 AM

Hi Lileoj,
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Other benefits of this plan:
a. Aggregated mailbox size. If you have multiple accounts then you can control the size of mailboxes. For example: your sales team might need additional space while your accounts department might need only 500 MB of space. Using aggregation, you can set the mailbox size of accounts department to 500 MB and assign 1.5 GB to Sales team.
b. No setup charges for your Hosted Exchange accounts.

2. Hosted Exchange Gold Plan: 4 GB of mailbox for $8.95 per month. Includes free Outlook Web Access and free mobile device synchronization using ActiveSync. BlackBerry device synchronization is available for a one time setup fee of $29.95 and $9.95/month.

Other benefits of this plan:
c. Aggregated mailbox size. If you have multiple accounts then you can control the size of mailboxes. For example: your sales team might additional space where as your accounts department might need only 1 GB of space. Using aggregation, you can set the mailbox size of the accounts department to 1 GB and assign 7 GB to the Sales team.
d. No setup charges for your Hosted Exchange accounts.

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Score: 0

By Tenoq

posted Aug 28, 2008 - 10:26 PM

Thanks, but I already have a free service from Google that does OTA syncing of my calendar, contacts and email to my iPhone. I *really* can't see the advantage in changing my email address and paying $99/year to get MobileMe for the same service. Moreover, calendar sharing is a lot easier with GCal than any of the other solutions I've seen.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 28, 2008 - 4:55 PM

Shouldn't be too hard.

Service outages, lost/unrecoverable mail, and pissed off users....

Who couldn't do that?

Score: 0

By mooseter

edited Aug 28, 2008 - 4:06 PM

"Thus it could be argued that, even with its faults, Apple's service still remains the better deal at $99 per year."

i'll argue that anything that doesn't work properly is never the better deal. A broken service that "offers" me more features but... is broken... is not better.
i'd rather pay $500 for the beat up car with wheels than the $99 flashy car with no wheels.

Score: 0

By Mecanoroid

posted Aug 29, 2008 - 11:12 AM

You are strange an unadapted to this new, modern, shiny, techno words-have-no-more-meanings, we-know-that's-best-for-you, you-do-not-need-freedom-or-privacy world...

Feel the same though :)

Score: 0

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