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Hey BlackBerry, Move Over! The Carriers Are Coming In

People on the go now have another alternative to the BlackBerry: A new push E-mail service from Vodafone. Visto Corp. said today that it has extended its push E-mail platform to Vodafone, and this could mean that mobile E-mail is shifting from a BlackBerry-dominated niche market made up of enterprise users to a more mass-market adoption.

Vodafone will now offer its own branded push E-mail and personal-information-manager service to customers with support for different mobile devices, as an alternative to the Blackberry, the company says. Vodafone is marketing its service to large enterprises, small and midsize businesses, and individual users, stressing the point that the Visto-powered push E-mail service will be widely available to all types of customers.

The Vodafone service is powered by Visto’s ConstantSync technology, which gives users two-way access to E-mail, calendar, and contacts. The technology works with a broad set of mobile devices like the Vodafone v1620, Motorola MPx220, Nokia 6630, and Sony Ericsson P910i. It also spans across various operating systems including Symbian, Palm, Microsoft Windows Mobile, J2ME MIDP 2.0, IMAP4, and SyncML.

But before you make the switch, note that Vodafone’s push E-mail service is currently available only to customers in Germany, Greece, Italy, France, Finland, Spain, and the U.K. Vodafone says it will be offering services in additional markets over the course of this year.

Visto has made footprint in the United States as well by teaming up with major carriers like AT&T/Cingular and Nextel.

Canada’s largest phone carrier Rogers Communications Inc. is also launching its own branded wireless email service that will be supported by Visto, which shows that more carriers are taking on Research in Motion’s BlackBerry.

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