Visto Mobile for Wireless Operators

15th June , 2004

US : Breakthrough mobile messaging solutions provider Visto Corporation today announced its new integrated platform allowing mobile network operators to provide push-based mobile email/PIM solutions aimed at individual, small business or corporate customers.

Visto Mobile unlocks the market by providing operators with a single common architecture to integrate a range of push email/PIM services on a host of different handsets, from most simple phones to the most capable smart phones. Visto Mobile provides the real-time platform operators want, in order to provide a wide range of mobile mail solutions to their subscribers. The platform includes Visto Mobile Personal Edition, providing personal email/PIM to subscribers; and Visto Mobile Enterprise Server, an enterprise class solution for companies using Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino servers. Visto Mobile provides an always-connected solution for immediate delivery of email to the mobile device over 2.5G and 3G networks including GPRS, CDMA/1xRTT, CDMA 2000 and WCDMA.

"The Visto Mobile platform provides a powerful tool to mobile operators," said Paolo Pescatore, senior analyst for IDC's European Wireless and Mobile Communications Service. "Visto's strategy of providing broad device support, personal and corporate email/PIM, with real-time, push email delivery, makes them the one to watch. It's shown impressive growth having nearly 200,000 paid subscribers among ten wireless operators worldwide."

With this new release, Visto has also improved upon product usability and performance on popular mobile devices including Sony Ericsson's P900, P800, palmOne's Treo600, Nokia 6600, and SPV e-200 and J2ME-based devices. Other enhancements include scalability and performance; reporting and customer support tools and 'class of service' provisioning features that help mobile operators create service packages targeted at specific customer segments.

Visto Mobile is integrated within a Network Operating Centre (NOC) that can either be located within the operator's network, or can be independently hosted by Visto. Hosting the Visto Mobile Access Platform on the NOC provides a single point of integration for the operator's authentication, provisioning and billing systems.

With recently secured funding totaling more than $65 million, and over 200,000 paid subscribers with ten different mobile operators worldwide; Visto is an acknowledged leader in developing and introducing multiple mobile email solutions. The company owns nine patents relating to mobile email/PIM, and is the mobile email client of choice for both PalmSource and Microsoft.

This new platform follows on the company's acquisition of Seattle's ViAir last year, and incorporated ViAir's technology onto the Visto Mobile Personal Edition and Visto Mobile Enterprise Server mobile email/PIM clients.

"Visto continues to set the pace for introducing mobile email/PIM solutions to market," said Brian Bogosian, chairman, president and CEO of Visto Corporation. "The heart of our proposition is that with the Visto Mobile platform, operators can offer customers individual, POP3, or corporate email/PIM accounts. What's more, they can use handsets from Sony Ericsson, Nokia, palmOne, or many others, and run the service over Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, PalmSource, or J2ME operating platforms."

"We provide control and flexibility for the operator, and choice in the hands of the customer. Our focused team of developers and the broad scope of our patents will allow us to continue to push the mobile mail service boundaries," Bogosian added.

Visto has already begun implementing its next generation push architecture aimed at improving user experience and optimizing data usage. Visto also plans further developments to advance and expand the range of add-on services operators will be able to offer. For example, the company plans to upgrade the Visto Mobile platform to enable operators to seamlessly introduce add-on services for current handsets. Visto Mobile platform is being integrated into the company's existing operator services in North America, Asia Pacific and Europe.

Technical Note:

Visto Mobile is the brand name for Visto's patented comprehensive architecture and product suite that provides continuously synchronized, secure and reliable mobile access to corporate and personal email/PIM, calendar and address book data on all popular mobile devices and networks. Visto Mobile comprises server, desktop, and device software components as well as Visto's hosted NOC solution along with flexible APIs that integrate into a complete mobile email/PIM solution for wireless operators to rapidly deploy as their uniquely branded solution for their subscribers.

Visto Mobile Access Platform (VMAP) is Visto's hosting platform for the Visto Mobile architecture. VMAP comprises the infrastructure of the Network Operation Centre and the connectivity software within the NOC and the wireless operator's infrastructure to facilitate real-time access and continuous synchronisation of data. VMAP is hosted by Visto but may also be tailored to be installed within a network operator's infrastructure.

Designed with mobile operators and wireless network environments in mind, the Visto Mobile Access Platform is a complete set of infrastructure and applications used to deploy the Visto service with wireless operators worldwide. It is a core component of Visto's mobile email and personal information management (PIM) access solution, and facilitates secure real-time access to behind the firewall corporate data from smart device clients as well as browsers. This access is based on Visto's innovative IP triggered synchronisation technology.

Visto provides a fully scalable, highly reliable, class of service provisionable carrier grade solution for wireless operators in a hosted (outsourced), semi-hosted (hybrid), or licensed (in-network) implementation. Integration APIs provide provisioning and data access with other applications and enhanced integration to other operator infrastructure elements (e.g. voice compose/reply, SMS access and print-to-fax etc.). The full set of administration tools include subscriber reporting and system monitoring.

Visto has designed its architecture from the start based on the core requirements of mobile operators; this approach enables Visto to offer a solution that easily integrates with the operator's authentication, provisioning and billing systems, along with a single sign-on mechanism, integrated portal, system monitoring and customer support.

Operators have the ability to target different market segments, from consumers, mobile professionals to small/medium businesses and workgroups to large enterprises with the Visto solution.

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