We define six critical capabilities for enterprise wireless e-mail software products and their relative importance in typical use cases. Enterprises should use these capabilities to identify which server-side products best suit their specific needs.

• Research In Motion's (RIM's) BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), Microsoft Exchange Server and Good Technology's Good Mobile Messaging have the best product viability and offer the widest overall support for critical capabilities in enterprise wireless e-mail products.
• BES and Good Mobile Messaging are most viable where strong security and international roaming are required. Exchange Server fits best in scenarios with national deployments or strong requirements for integration with Microsoft collaboration platforms, which lets organizations deploy and benefit from this lower-cost product.
• A single product is often not enough to address all user requirements in complex environments. A combination of two software products represents a better solution for managing multiple user profiles and device diversity. Parallel deployments of BES and Exchange Server are very common in such situations.
• RIM's BES, which basically supports only the RIM operating system (OS) platform, offers a richer set of security and management capabilities than any other products with wider device flexibility, like Exchange Server, Good Mobile Messaging or Sybase iAnywhere Mobile Office.

• Organizations:
  • Deploy BES for BlackBerry devices with users travelling abroad, and license-free BES Express when security and management requirements are basic.
  • Consider native capabilities in Microsoft's and IBM's e-mail server products when supporting corporate devices without stringent security requirements for users moving on a national basis only.
  • Consider Good or Sybase products for employee-owned devices where stronger security and management is required.
• Wireless e-mail vendors:
  • Prioritize developments for new platforms including Android, Windows Phone 7, Maemo and MeeGo — as well as new form factors, such as e-readers.

Organizations face several challenges as the rollout of wireless e-mail broadens. Many employees use consumer-grade mobile devices to access their personal e-mail and aim to connect them to corporate e-mail. Device platform fragmentation, as well as rapid product evolution, complicate strategic investment decisions and support. IT departments that deploy wireless e-mail are pressured to deliver corporate e-mail securely and cost-effectively on a wide range of mobile devices, including personal ones. More-cautious organizations often delay deployments due to security concerns, operational overhead and unpredictable connectivity costs.

Enterprise wireless e-mail products are mature, with enhanced capabilities in security and management. Multiple handset manufacturers and software vendors have licensed Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) to improve interoperability between their own and others' wireless e-mail products. EAS is already a de facto standard for interoperability among different software products, services and devices. This trend drives interoperability and commoditization in this market. Wireless e-mail software vendors are pursuing differentiation by extending their products toward collaboration and applications. Overall, the market is consolidating around Microsoft and RIM, the two market leaders. Beyond them, several regional or local players are competing for limited market share. A detailed analysis of the enterprise wireless e-mail market and the leading vendors is covered in the "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wireless E-Mail Software Market." This research focuses on the capabilities and viability of their enterprise wireless e-mail products.

Employee requirements for functionality, usability, security and manageability vary significantly depending on the user profile — forcing IT organizations to deploy a more complex combination of products and services to support this diversity. Before evaluating wireless e-mail product alternatives, organizations should analyze their users' needs and basic technical requirements to identify main user categories and technical solution packages. Please refer to Gartner's research on user segmentation methodology.

Compare your requirements with our use cases to determine the relative importance of each critical capability in your choice. Use product ratings to select the product (or combination of products) that best supports your mobility plans.

Gartner defines "enterprise wireless e-mail" as the delivery of e-mail to mobile devices through a software gateway installed on the enterprise's premises, behind the firewall and connected to (or part of) the e-mail server. Calendars, contacts and task information are supported as well. These products may offer IT administration, security and remote device management to varying degrees, and they support "push" delivery, where new items are automatically delivered to a mobile device as soon as they're received on the e-mail server. Most products support Microsoft Exchange Server; fewer support Lotus Notes and Novell GroupWise. All work with offline e-mail clients, either using a proprietary client or the device's native client.

Technology vendors sell these products directly to customers, or through distribution channels such as mobile operators, service providers and system integrators. Midsize and large organizations traditionally choose these products, deploying and managing them internally. In addition, a growing number of organizations choose to buy services from external providers that deliver managed or hosted services to customers, deploying the above products in their own data centers. Increasingly, small businesses will choose cloud-based services, which are not covered in this report.

Enterprise wireless e-mail products must provide an adequate experience for employees when accessing corporate e-mail on a smartphone in terms of usability, e-mail/personal information management (PIM) functionality, service level and availability. They must also grant IT organizations specific capabilities to secure, control and manage these deployments remotely and cost-effectively, in addition to supporting users and granting service levels. Enterprises typically begin to invest in this area by choosing products that meet the specific requirements of a single user group (executives, for example), then successively expand support to other users, by scaling up the initial deployment and adding complementary products for new user categories.

This research examines six critical capabilities that differentiate competing enterprise wireless e-mail products:

• Messaging and PIM. This is the ability of a product to provide e-mail, calendar, contacts and task functionality on smartphones. This includes attachment handling, browsable links, search, filtering, remote folders, meeting schedules and so on. Some products also offer integration with Short Message Service (SMS), instant messaging (IM) and presence, unified communications and social-networking products or services. It also includes user experience.
• Platform diversity. This is the ability of a product to support messaging, PIM, security and management capabilities across multiple mobile client platforms, such as Windows Mobile, Symbian, iOS, RIM OS, Web OS and Android.
• Networks. This is the ability of a product to optimize wireless data transmission through dedicated protocols and data compression, integrate with multiple mobile network operators' infrastructures to provide better quality of service, and grant global support and more convenient data tariff plans through partnerships with local mobile operators.
• Server integration. This is the ability of a product to integrate with different e-mail servers (for example, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes/Domino), unified communications platforms (for example, Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Lotus Sametime), data repository access products (for example, Microsoft SharePoint, IBM FileNet), and application integration platforms such as Siebel and SAP. Server integration also includes support for e-mail protocols such as integrated multiservice access platform 4 (IMAP4), Messaging API (MAPI) and Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).
• Security/management. This is the ability of a product to provide native security capabilities such as authentication, device encryption and end-to-end e-mail encryption; implement over-the-air management policies such as device lock, device wiping and user lockout; support device management, software upgrades and provisioning; and provide reporting and audit trail capabilities. It also includes real-time monitoring.
• Data center support. This is the ability of a product to fit in with data center initiatives and policy requirements, offering scalability, resilience and service-level management support for medium and large deployments. Functionality includes capacity management, load balancing, high availability, disaster recovery and failover mechanisms.

All enterprise wireless e-mail deployments share a common set of requirements that are all captured in the six critical capabilities listed above. However, depending on the specific context of use and project conditions, those requirements may acquire a different level of importance for each IT organization. The scope and complexity of the wireless e-mail initiative under consideration, as well as the maturity of pre-existing deployments, are key factors that influence the weight of each critical capability and drive the decisional process differently. We identify typical situations (or use cases) that alter the weight of critical capabilities. They address the ability to provision, manage and maintain populations of e-mail users based on three different architectural designs:

• Internal/local deployment. A midsize or large organization is offering wireless e-mail to a limited number of employees (up to 500), with national mobility patterns. Only corporate devices, likely on one/two mobile OS platforms, are supported, without differentiation of user profiles. User experience is rated as important. Available budget and IT resources tend to be limited. User service levels are basic (8/5 — that is, eight hours a day, five days per week). Only one wireless e-mail server (for example, BES) is deployed on a local single-node architecture. Integration with communications and collaboration servers (for example, Microsoft OCS and SharePoint) may be implemented to support better collaboration. Server integration may extend beyond communications and collaboration to corporate application servers and voice or line-of-business applications.
• Internal/broad deployment. A midsize or large organization is offering wireless e-mail to a medium number of employees (up to 5,000), with international mobility patterns within a region. A few user roles with different requirements are identified. Two or three mobile OS platforms may need to be supported. Employee-owned device models are rarely in use. Two wireless e-mail server products (for example, BES and Microsoft Exchange) are deployed on a multiple-node architecture, either local or distributed. User service levels are intermediate (24/5 — 24 hours a day, five days per week).
• Hybrid/broad deployment. A large organization is offering wireless e-mail to a large number of employees (more than 5,000), with global international mobility patterns. Multiple user roles are identified — based on preferences, tasks and applications used — which require support for multiple device platforms. Different user experiences and service quality are supported. Employee-owned device models may be in use. Multiple wireless e-mail servers and external services may be in use. A distributed architecture with multiple nodes is required. High availability is required, with user service levels up to 24/7.

Since product scalability is a key requirement to support progressive growth of the user base's size, we have identified three reference sizes that characterize our use cases, to capture different weights for the data center support capability. On average, for up to 500 e-mail accounts, most wireless e-mail gateway products run on a single-node hardware architecture; for up to 5,000 e-mail accounts, they require a few nodes; beyond 5,000 e-mail accounts they require multiple node architectures.

The network's critical capability contains separate requirements for network performance and commercial services. Organizations might weight them differently in a selection exercise. In our model, we assume that integrating with multiple network carriers and network optimization might be unimportant for a single-country deployment, typical of an internal or local use case, but they become progressively more important in internal/broad and hybrid/broad use cases that are international and multinational (and include employee-owned devices). These use cases are provided as typical examples we see in client enquiries.

Table 1 summarizes the relevance of wireless e-mail critical capabilities, by use case.

Products considered in this research are those provided by any vendors included in the "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Wireless E-Mail Software Market." In particular, inclusion criteria from this Magic Quadrant that relate to products include:

• Single data store for e-mail: All e-mail actions must be processed immediately in a central data store to avoid the confusion caused by processing multiple, independent actions in multiple stores. Temporary copies of messages may be on wireless devices or on the network, but actions must be reconciled at the central store. Immediate action on PIM data is not required, but is desirable.
• Data solution behind corporate firewall: To be considered secure, the technology that communicates with the central e-mail data store and routes e-mail or PIM data to wireless devices must sit behind the corporate firewall. There must be a secure link between wireless devices and the central store that does not originate or terminate on noncorporate assets. The network may include devices that improve performance, but information must not reside on the network permanently or in unsecured locations.
• Offline support for at least two of these device platforms: Apple iPhone (see Note 1), Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian or RIM OS. Support for more than two types of device platforms is preferred.
• Support for multiple devices on multiple mobile networks: Products must not tie customers contractually to one mobile operator, forcing them to use its services. A vendor may operate a network operations center (NOC) to support different mobile networks. Alternatively, the user may manage the connections to different operators.
• Support for wireless devices' native e-mail programs, or support for an alternative e-mail client with superior functions: We favor offerings with e-mail and PIM clients that provide similar functions across different device platforms, because they create a consistent look and feel, which is easier to support.
• Security capabilities must include, at minimum, native support for remote wiping, complex alphanumeric password and password change enforcement for at least one supported device. Support for more security policies above the minimum is preferred.

Each of the wireless e-mail products that meet our inclusion criteria was evaluated on the six critical capabilities, on a scale from 1.0 to 5.0.

The following nine product vendors were included in this review:

• CommonTime
• Excitor
• Good Technology
• IBM
• Microsoft
• Notify Technology
• Research In Motion
• Sybase
• Synchronica

To determine an overall score for each product in the three use cases, the product ratings given in Table 2 are multiplied by the weightings shown in Table 1. These scores are shown in Table 3, which also provides our assessment of the viability of each product.

CommonTime's mSuite is an integrated suite of products that includes push e-mail, chat, data replication, mobile device security and device management, and a few "out-of-the-box" mobile applications (see Table 4). CommonTime is mainly focused on North America and Europe, and 95% of its business comes from Lotus Notes/Domino integration, although it also now supports Microsoft Exchange. It is network- and device-neutral.

Please note that the vendor did not respond to our survey, so we have been unable to determine its current results and financial condition. Any customer considering doing business with the company should request and assess, under a nondisclosure agreement, its current financial position prior to signing any contracts.

Excitor's product, DME, offers wireless e-mail and PIM capabilities, complemented by extensive support for mobile security, device management and data center disciplines, such as high availability, load balancing and service management (see Table 5). DME has a proprietary e-mail client integrating with native capabilities for calendar and PIM functionality on a range of different client platforms, including iPhone. Android support is in beta testing phase and is due to be released in the market by the end of June 2010.

Good Mobile Messaging (now part of the Good for Enterprise offering) includes a proprietary stand-alone software client that delivers e-mail and PIM capability across multiple device platforms (including devices from Palm, Nokia, HTC and Samsung). It offers a NOC-based solution, similar to RIM's BlackBerry. See Table 6 for its critical capabilities rating.

IBM's Lotus Notes Traveler is a Domino 8.x server add-on that provides basic e-mail functionality for mobile devices. It supports Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhone devices. On iPhone, a native application client (IBM Lotus Notes Traveler Companion) supports local data encryption and sandbox partitioning and it is available for free on App Store. IBM continues to support partners that offer more fully featured mobile e-mail solutions for Lotus Notes, including RIM, Good Technology, Sybase and CommonTime. Android support is planned for 2H10 (see Table 7).

Microsoft's wireless e-mail solution is a native capability of its e-mail server product line — for the releases Exchange Server 2010, 2007 and Exchange Server 2003 (through Service Pack 2). This capability, with basic security, is available at no extra charge. It is based on the EAS (server side) protocol's implementation (see Table 8).

Notify's e-mail product NotifyLink has traditionally focused on Novell GroupWise, but today supports a wide range of e-mail protocols, extending mobile e-mail support to many of the smaller market share e-mail servers and collaboration suites, including those from Oracle, Mirapoint, Scalix and Zimbra (see Table 9). Notify also integrates with Microsoft Exchange, but not with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino. It is primarily focused on the North American market.

RIM's BES is a proprietary solution that offers the strongest enterprise-class functionality, security and manageability of all wireless e-mail products, and it integrates tightly with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise (see Table 10). While a BlackBerry Connect client is available for a number of non-RIM devices, the full range of functionality is only supported on RIM's own proprietary BlackBerry devices. Because of the granular security policies and central manageability, RIM has been very successful in single-solution enterprise deployments, especially for senior executives and data-security-conscious industries.

Sybase's iAnywhere Mobile Office includes e-mail and PIM capabilities (see Table 11). It provides extensions to native e-mail/PIM clients (for example, meeting invitation, corporate directory and search capability) for Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian and Palm devices. The degree of customization depends on the device. For the iPhone, Sybase created a client for wireless e-mail, contacts, calendar and tasks. iAnywhere Mobile Office supports business process mobilization with server-side and device-side widgets that link into other enterprise systems so that users can complete business processes from within their in-boxes. In May 2010, SAP announced the acquisition of Sybase with the intention to keep the company as a stand-alone unit, but organizations will have to monitor closely whether iAnywhere Mobile Office will be kept competitive as an independent wireless e-mail product.

Synchronica sells a product for businesses, called Mobile Gateway Enterprise Edition, which can be either deployed internally or hosted and which includes e-mail and PIM capabilities (see Table 12). The product uses the native industry-standard clients found on the device, but Synchronica also provides its own SyncML clients for Palm and Windows Mobile devices. The standards-based product supports a wide range of consumer phones, including Symbian 40 devices, SyncML and IMAP devices. This allows support for business wireless e-mail on cheaper phones, which is attractive for enterprises operating in emerging countries.

To make appropriate investment decisions in wireless e-mail software products, enterprises must first understand the maturity of current deployments, as well as their current and future user requirements. User requirements should be assessed against three deployment use cases: internal/local, internal/broad and hybrid/broad. Increasingly, organizations will need deployments to support multiple user roles. Wireless e-mail products should then be evaluated for suitability based on their critical capabilities, and this evaluation should be weighted according to an organization's mix of use cases.