Push email without a BlackBerry

There's email, then there is push email. The latter describes a way by which email is delivered, sending it to a user's device as it arrives on the mail server. So instead of actively retrieving messages, they are "pushed" to the recipient--thus its name. Push email is what made Research In Motion (RIM) successful. RIM made it easy for a business professional to read email on-the-go, and created BlackBerry devices which were user-friendly enough so the end user needn't think about how they worked.

These days, getting your email pushed to you doesn't require you to use a BlackBerry. It may still be one of the easiest ways to do it, but there are numerous other methods which work on Windows Mobile, Symbian and even regular phones using Java. Here are just a few examples.

Your HTC Touch Pro can get push email, too.

Microsoft Direct Push

Available on all Windows Mobile 5.0 devices and above, this service will work for you as long as your company runs Exchange Server 2003 SP2 and above. If you don't know whether your company does, check with your IT department. But if you are using Outlook to receive work email, chances are there's an Exchange server working behind it. Your IT department needs to enable the feature, and from there, it's just a matter of you keying in the right details on your device to get going.

This has also been implemented on certain Series 60 devices from Nokia, most prominently the Eseries meant for business and certain Nseries devices.

Google Android

Considering there's only one product, the T-Mobile G1, that uses Google's Android OS currently and that it's available only in the US for now, we could easily overlook this. But if you love the Gmail interface, this would be your best bet. Just like on your browser, new emails will appear in your Android Gmail inbox as they arrive on the server. Considering that you can configure your Gmail account as a client for other mail accounts quite easily, this solution could be the easiest to deploy for individual users.

iPhone users who need push email may want to give Apple's subscription-based MobileMe a try.

Apple MobileMe

While the iPhone also has support for getting push mail through an Exchange server for enterprise users, Apple also has a subscription-based service for regular consumers. MobileMe is actually a suite of services including mail, online storage, photo gallery, among others. Its email service gives you an address ending with @me.com and can be pushed down to the iPhone. This service was launched earlier this year and met with some problems initially. It isn't cheap at S$148 for a year's subscription, but could be a good solution for Mac users, especially those who have been using the company's .Mac service previously.

Other third-party software

Aside from the small sample listed above, there is software out there which does the job, too. One example is SEVEN, an application that's available for lots of mobile operating systems including Windows Mobile, Palm OS and even Java for regular phones. SEVEN is deployed by operators, so whether you can get it to work for you may depend on which provider you are signed up with.