MEX

Synchronia, the mobile middleware provider, is working with Korean manufacturer KC Mobile to deliver MessagePhone – an integrated user experience for push email, social networking and web browsing on a handset costing under USD 100. They’ve built two handsets, both featuring QWERTY keyboards, which are pre-integrated with Synchronia’s back-end server.

Put simply: it’s a Blackberry-style architecture, but at considerably lower cost. There is also the advantage of being able to use the Synchronia server to role out the same services to other devices on the network, unlike Blackberry, which only works with its own devices and a small number of others.

The devices themselves are quite basic, with one featuring a VGA camera and the other including a 1.3 megapixel sensor. However, taken as a total package, they will bring QWERTY messaging, email, social networking and full HTML web browsing to a significant new chunk of the user base in emerging economies.

This plays to the need for a layer of smart middleware which can mediate between the inherently unreliable nature of wireless network connections and the ‘always on’ web environment of email and social networking. Network operators in the most advanced economies are still struggling to get to grips with this, so this seems like a smart and early move by Synchronia to build a complete user experience offering, from handset to middleware to services.