IBM, Visto Partner On Lotus Notes TravelerIBM, Visto Partner On Lotus Notes Traveler

Mobile e-mail provider Visto is rolling out new software that targets a diverse customer base from enterprise IT managers to iPhone users.

The company on Tuesday announced a partnership with IBM to integrate Visto Mobile, a "push e-mail" application, into IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, a new client for Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0.1 that will be available early next year.

Visto Mobile will be provided as a "connector" that's implemented as a Domino task, which means companies won't have to deploy a separate server that would direct e-mail from Lotus Notes to mobile devices.

"IT won't have to install a separate server for mobile e-mail. We're going to have that capability built into Domino directly. It's all going to be secured and enabled by the IT department. Through our partnership with IBM, we're hoping to provide a great experience to users," said Matt Parks, Visto's director of product management, in an interview.

Visto is clearly going after Research In Motion's BlackBerry business and Microsoft, which already offers Direct Push Technology that delivers e-mail directly from Microsoft Exchange Servers to Windows Mobile devices without middleware.

Additionally, Visto next month will roll out new rich features for Apple's iPhone.

The Global Address Lookup (GAL), for example, will allow an employee to search for contacts in his or her company's e-mail directory. Once a name is found, an employee can call the contact, e-mail them, or find their location on a map by using the other applications on the iPhone, such as Google Maps.

"The GAL feature gives you all the functionality that you get on your desktop on your iPhone. We did the heavy lifting on the lookup itself, so that users can get fast results," said Doug Brackbill, Visto's Chief Marketing Officer. Looking up a contact in GAL will take two to three seconds, despite the iPhone slow data speeds, Brackbill said.

Visto will also start supporting HTML on the iPhone, allowing users to view formatted e-mail and attachments on the device. All file types supported by the iPhone can be viewed by Visto Mobile, Visto said.

Apple hasn't opened up the iPhone to third-party applications developers, which is why Visto created the address lookup feature for the iPhone's Safari Web browser.

To deliver its Visto Mobile service to the iPhone, Visto will use the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) standard. The iPhone comes with a built-in rich HTML e-mail client, which fetches e-mail in the background from most POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3) and IMAP e-mail services.