You know how it goes – when you’re a lawyer, the guy next to you knows more than you about law, when you’re a mechanic, the customer will also know that the cracked round thing sticking out of the casing is not a blown piston but was in fact designed like that for…er…aesthetic purposes… <\/p>\n
Same applies – or perhaps worse when you have made your bed in the IT or Telecoms world – because for all other people (including your aunt) you either fix phones or computers – end of story.<\/p>\n
But did you actually know that the opposite is also true..? – that for example the mere act of owning a mobile device usually make one an expert in the area of telecoms – thus the reason why the world is full of “I do not even subscribe to a push mail service but I get all my mails on my new Super Duper XYZ phone…man these Super Duper XYZ’s are the best phones ever!!!”<\/p>\n
So since SKY and BBC are also now picking up on this push mail trend, how about we quickly run through a couple of the real facts – leaving the mechanic’s to fix mechanical components such as those found in cars, lawyers to draw up court documents and the IT people to manage the IT infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The mobile mail debate, not unlike the current UWB vs. USB where the Ultra Wide Band gives you wireless USB at the sacrifice of charging your devices, is all about push or pull technologies. Sure – you can have the pull option but at the sacrifice of certain elements…<\/p>\n
Pull mail is something you can do on almost all compatible mobile devices able to run J2ME (Java), Symbian and a host of other operating systems. You do not need to subscribe to any service and can retrieve most of the free e-mail provider’s mail this way.<\/p>\n
So, you got your brand new spanking S. D. XYZ in hand, configure it to retrieve the Gmail mail – wow what a great phone – until 2 hours later when the battery runs out, you being harassed by the network administrator and your phone bill has risen to stratosphere levels… <\/p>\n
Problem here is that when you set up that phone, it polls the server – probably continually or every 5 seconds – dependant on how it is set up.<\/p>\n
Problem is that POP clients do not stay connected – so every 5 seconds the S.D. XYZ have to authenticate to the server, a list command is given (to list all new mail and in most cases all the current mail) and then disconnects – every 5 seconds – but lets put that in perspective: that is 12 requests per minute, 720 requests per hour or 17280 requests per day – from a single phone…! <\/p>\n
Firsly, that takes care of your loving system administrator who wants to break your legs for clogging up the network.<\/p>\n
Secondly, also have a look at what you are doing to the network with utterly useless data being transmitted. Imagine 2 million other people doing the exact same thing – you would bring the network down to a crawling pace and jeopardizing my chances of advancing to General status in Warhawk which, like any other game needs the latency kept low.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, even though it is small amounts of data, it’s like cents – a lot of of cents (and in this case I really mean a lot) will quickly add up to Rands that will hurt you at the end of the month which is in any case costing more than a subscription service would have cost you in the first place.<\/p>\n
I actually had a work colleague about 3 years ago that had one of these S.D. XYZ phones and set it up to retrieve his pop mail at the office against my warning.<\/p>\n
He went overseas and came back with a mobile account of over R25 000 of which about 2\/3rds was due to the fact that he had his phone set on continual polling – this was about 3 years ago…<\/p>\n
Lately when polling so much – accessing, authenticating, disconnecting every 5 seconds, say goodbye to battery life as all this switching on and off uses up a lot of power…<\/p>\n
So what is push technology then..?<\/p>\n
Well, simply put – it is infrastructure dedicated to sending the mail landing in your server inbox to your handset – immediately.<\/p>\n
Because of the dedicated infrastructure, it also means that your mail is sent securely. This might not seem important when that same aunt who still believes you fix phones for a living, sends you the latest receipt for koeksisters and you lose the phone or it get’s attacked – but when it’s one of your directors just getting the latest info for the public announcement, or your own banking details or even you salary slip – it is going to be a problem. <\/p>\n
So when it is encrypted and can be remotely wiped so that no other person can access your salary slip, it’s good to know.<\/p>\n
I also mentioned “immediately” – I have had several discussions with people that started with an e-mail – sending a file and then discussing it – albeit unintentionally via e-mail only. Although this is not what the system was designed for, it is a real bonus.<\/p>\n
PIM (personal information management) is the next thing your S.D. XYZ will not give you without the push infrastructure. This basically just means that not only are your e-mail pushed but also your calendar, notes, to-do etc which keeps you completely synced 100% of the time – accepting and declining meetings as if you where in front of your notebook.<\/p>\n
A lot of the vendors are also using this same technology for “beyond e-mail” applications – such as using CRM, ERP, financial systems etc. as if you were logged in via a PC.<\/p>\n
Now you are probably thinking in the back of your mind – that’s great – this is all good news – what is the bad…?<\/p>\n
The biggest revelation to me was when testing comparative systems, it was found that some “push-mail” servers actually increase the files sizes – that’s right…while almost all vendors took the example file, compressed to ¼ or ½ of the actual size and sending it over the network, there was other vendors where the file-size actually increased…taking for e.g. a 1 meg file, reconverting it and sending it as a 1.2 meg file…<\/p>\n
So, this just means – be very careful when choosing your push-mail vendor…<\/p>\n
You would not take your broken car to your IT friend – even if he knows a lot about cars, neither would you ever have your lawyer touching an IT system – so I guess what I’m saying is, go with someone who does this for a living…and if you see something advertised as “free” check again…<\/p>\n