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"We see no competition for corporate email over wireless" - Commtag

It's only two months since Commtag won the 3GSM award for "best mobile data product" and in the weeks since then, CEO Geoffrey Baird has had his hands full, being snapped up by a matching partner - Finland based Smartner.

Commtag has absolutely walked away with the prize for best "push to corporate" email product, with its Duality server. But award-winning and client-pleasing though Duality is, what it isn't, is scalable to the simpler device user. In short, it worked fine on a full PDA, or smartphone - but most corporate users don't have these.

Smartner has the matching abilities; it can work over multiple channels - WAP, http, Syncml, browser access - to feed corporate data to what Geoffrey Baird describes as "the other 70% of company employees."

Baird told NewsWireless.Net that "There's an opportunity here, and it needs scale." He continued: "We have a very good, very particular product; but users want a whole range of mobile services. We're focused on corporate market, and Smartner have a classic multi-channel offering, while we have our premium push system; together we have a product range that services the whole mobile needs of a corporate customer."

Baird said that he now felt the new company had no real rivals. "Really,as far as I know, there isn't a company in the world who has this mobile product range. We know that RIM is aiming at covering this area, and it has deep pockets - but they aren't European based, and they haven't yet delivered the expansion on device support they promised."

Rivals like Viair and Seven Networks in North America are in this market, but have had to pull most of their staff out of Europe. "I know Seven has won a deal with Orange, but that doesn't make them European based; and Europe is the heartland of GSM and GPRS usage and development," said Baird.

The new company will, in effect, be Smartner; Baird was sent into Commtag by venture capitalist Amadeus to get the company ready for this development, and he will be winding down his involvement in day to day operations, now he's achieved his ambition of moving Commtag into the next phase. The management of the joint company will pass to Smartner CEO Robert Rasmus.

"The competence in always-on mobile email brought by Commtag is an essential part of Smartner's future solution offering. In particular Commtag's award-winning Duality product, which is based on "push" technology, will boost Smartner's position as a forerunner of mobile office solutions," said Smartner CEO Robert Rasmus. "With this acquisition, we are committed to delivering enterprise customers the best mobile office solutions in the market with the most attractive total cost of ownership."

Baird said the takeover was not the result of a feeling of vulnerability, but because of feeling limited. "I felt - no, not vulnerable, but restricted in our ability to achieve what we could. In a 1,000 user company, Duality would serve the top 150 users, challenging BlackBerry successfully - but corporates aren't going to buy PDAs for professionals at their desks."

However, Baird felt, "there is value in these executives being able to access the corporate services with whatever hardware they have. This merger means we can put together a product that services 70% not 15% of the market. We can reach people who just have ordinary mobile phones, as well."

"The competence in always-on mobile email brought by Commtag is an essential part of Smartner's future solution offering. In particular Commtag's award-winning Duality product, which is based on "push" technology, will boost Smartner's position as a forerunner of mobile office solutions," said Smartner CEO Robert Rasmus. "With this acquisition, we are committed to delivering enterprise customers the best mobile office solutions in the market with the most attractive total cost of ownership."