push/pull technology

[Guest Luc_GIS]

Hi,

This is my first post on the forum.....yeah. Ok for serious now, as the subjesct allready says I want to know more about push and pull technology provided by the SPV and other available smartphones now and in the future.

All information concerned push/pull is welcome.

With kind regards,

Luc_GIS

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Welcome to the site :)

Push and Pull sorry not sure what you mean?

[Guest Luc_GIS]

In this article a little is explained about the protocols, but what I want to know is how the e-mail is being sent/received now or in the future for smartphones.

For example the Blackberry has got a push-technology which means when someone sent you an e-mail you get it directly on your Blackberry.

I hope this kind of technology is going to be considered to take in account for smartphones.

Kind regards,

Luc_GIS

[Guest pisquee]

Smartphone 200x uses standard POP/SMTP protocols for emails - so it pulls new emails from the server on request.

[Guest GNU]

There is a push functionallity in the Smartphone2003 if you combine it with the new Exchange 2003 server.

It works like this:

The Smartphone loads a background program at startup. This program polls for SMS's with a special layout.

Once a mail to you reaches your Exchange2003 server it creates a special SMS (require a sort of low level connection with the mobile phone operators infrastructure).

When this SMS reaches your Smartphone2003 it doesn't show like a usual SMS but triggers the background program in your phone witch in turn triggers Active Sync.

Active Sync connects thru GPRS, or pass thru connection if it is docked to a Internet connected computer, and down/uploads your messages.

Ta daa! "You have mail!"

Hope this gives a clearer images of the push functionality.

The pull funcionallity is already there if you have Exchange 2000 with MIS, Exchange 2003, or just a POP3/IMAP account. It means you have to trigger the sync (or with the help of scheduled sync).

//GNU

[Guest fozzie]

Hmmm, I'm not convinced that that is strictly push functionality. The client is being told to pull the email first. If it was push functionality, the email would be pushed straight to the client, without any initial interaction between client & server. I would put what you've described into the 'pseudo-push' category ;)

[Guest GNU]

Yes, you could call it that..

That's how it works anyway! :roll:

Look at the handshake procedures for different protocols. This is basicly how every communiction session works independant of protocol.

[Guest fraser]

Nah, it is push/pull. In fact, that's pretty much how it's named, how the message gets to the phone is just semantics. Think about it, a message gets pushed to the device, and the device pulls the message down.

The point is that the phone receives a "new mail" notification, and get's the mail straight away. This is much better than using periodic polling, I use 4meg of GPRS a month just polling my IMAP server every two hours, this would save me a fortune.

Any more info on what Smartphones are capable of would also be welcomed by me. What really would interest me would be a free way to do it, using SMS would cost money, and you'd need to set up an SMS provider somehow on your mailserver. Forget using MS Exchange, most folk don't. What would really be nice if Orange were to set up an SMS service like this that is free. If an email gets sent to a specific address, an instruction to poll goes to your phone. Then, you set your mail provider up to forward all messages (or even a subset, e.g. specific authors) to this special address (and keep a copy of the message as well). Then, this would trigger the update. Any Orange people reading this? It's a great idea for you, encourages folk to use GPRS that might normally wouldn't, plus it makes mobile e-mail so much more useful.

What could be done as a hack would be for your mail server to dial on an analogue line to your phone, then hang up after 3 or 4 rings. Then, some piece of software on the phone would register this (pretty feasable I think), then tell Outlook to send and receive (do-able, seen it done elsewhere).

Any other ideas for hacks/offical ways to do this would be appreciated. The next killer-app for e-mail will be instant notification, and I want to have all the new gadgets first!! :twisted:

[Guest GNU]

Most large company user use Exchange, Domino, or Groupwise.

Most private user (+small companies) use a POP3 or IMAP server.

I sell concepts based on mail infrastructure to large companies so...

Forget using MS Exchange, most folk don't. What would really be nice if Orange were to set up an SMS service like this that is free. If an email gets sent to a specific address, an instruction to poll goes to your phone. Then, you set your mail provider up to forward all messages

A Swedish operator called "Telia Mobile" launched the Canary (locally called Qtek7070) together with a hosting service that basicly does exactly what you speak of, based on Exchange. Unfortunatly the Swedish people are a bit conservative about mobile services. Telia Mobile has almost given up this race. :cry:

Take a look if you want. The link is www.telia.se/smart