MWC: Synchronica brings smartphone features to basic handsets

Synchronica has announced a new version of its Mobile Gateway messaging platform which adds unified messaging capabilities such as presence, IM and integration with social networks, even on entry-level handsets.

Available immediately, Mobile Gateway 6 is aimed at mobile carriers and handset makers, and enables them to offer email and messaging services to users on virtually any device, from basic handsets up to smartphones.

The new release builds on the push email capability already offered in Mobile Gateway, and adds IM, social networks and presence, all in a single lightweight client.

"With Mobile Gateway 5, we introduced a truly mass market push mail platform that worked on any handset from basic phones to feature phones all the way to smartphones, and now we're taking the story one step further with our move into unified messaging," said Synchronica chief executive Carsten Brinkschulte.

Unified messaging brings together email, IM, social networking and RSS feeds into a single unified inbox supporting streams from all these sources, he said.

"We think this takes into account what users are doing today. They are no longer using just one communications silo. They are using Twitter and Facebook as well as email and SMS, and it is increasingly difficult to keep track of all this in different places," Brinkschulte explained.

To support all this even on basic phones, Synchronica has introduced an ultra-lightweight Java J2ME client that is just 160KB in size. This offloads processing to the server, leaving the handset to simply handle the user interface.