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E-mail was the first killer app for the Internet, the one that proved to many people that the Internet could become an important part of their everyday lives. While the same can't be said for mobile computing (handwriting recognition holds the killer app position for handhelds), company's like Research In Motion(RIM) first made there reputations by giving users access to their e-mail anytime and anywhere from the BlackBerry wireless handheld.

Over the years, as more handhelds became wireless, corporate users and consumers alike have come to expect mobile access to their email as an essential part of any wireless package. This is where third party application providers often come into the picture. In fact, RIM itself has become one of these providers, as it has started licensing its push e-mail technology for use on other devices besides BlackBerries.

Consilient Technologies is another such company. And Today, Consilient launched a version of its Mobile Mail application that gives palmOne Treo 600 users access to their Novell GroupWise e-mail, a feature that has been missing from the platform.

According to the Consilient, Mobile Mail is a scaleable product that supports multiple networks and email platforms, delivering wireless push email for any IMAP4 server. Two versions of Consilient Mobile Mail are available, Enterprise Edition and Subscriber (hosted) Edition. Both versions have the same functionality, with over the air activation for the Subscriber edition.

In terms of security, Consilient Mobile Mail uses Triple DES encryption for distributed servers and 128-bit encryption between server and handheld. The software also offers attachment support for devices with document viewers installed. The Treo 600 is bundled with viewers for Microsoft Word and Excel, ASCII text, JPEG, vCard and vCal.

Mobile Mail for the Treo 600 could clear the way for increased penetration of the smartphone into the enterprise. Several operating system platforms, including Windows Mobile, Symbian and the Palm operating system, are battling it out in the nascent smartphone market. While the Palm platform isn't a major player in most of the world, a report a couple of months back by the NPD Group places it as the leading smartphone platform for the third straight month in the United States.

According to NPD, Palm OS smartphones this March exceeded Microsoft and Symbian Series 60 market share combined. NPD's data on the U.S. smartphone market gave the Palm OS a 47 percent market share, an increase of 13 points from January. Microsoft (the combination of Pocket PC Phone Edition and Microsoft Smartphone) and Symbian Series 60 tied with 20 percent market share each. Series 60 is the most common type of smartphone based on the Symbian platform.

NPD said rising sales of the Treo 600 and continued success of Kyocera and Samsung Palm OS smartphones contributed to the Palm platform's success.