Motorola's Good Mobile Messaging goes beyond email

A new enterprise mobility platform has been unveiled by Good Technology

Motorola's Good Technology group has unveiled a new version of its enterprise mobility platform for handhelds and smartphones, adding a new web-based administration console and a VPN to link mobile users with other applications behind the corporate firewall.

Good 6.0, available from Q4 2008, consists of three components; Good Mobile Messaging, the latest version of its push email system; Good Administration Centre; and Good Mobile Connection. The whole package provides customers with seamless mobile access to information and applications beyond email, according to the firm.

Good Mobile Connection takes the secure transport already used to connect the mobile client with the messaging server and makes this available for other applications. It provides a persistent connection to a company's network across Wi-Fi or cellular connections, enabling any mobile application that uses standard IP protocols to link to back-end infrastructure.

All traffic between the mobile clients and a company's network is routed through Good's network operation centre (NOC), which simplifies operations for customers because this link is managed by Good, according to the firm.

"We call it a managed-service VPN, and the idea is that this is better than current VPNs," said Hugh Stevenson, business development manager for Good Technology in EMEA. "Businesses don't have to be mobility experts. We're offloading complexity from them," he added.

The Good Administration Centre provides a unified console for IT managers to control their entire Good Technology infrastructure, including the Good Messaging server, client devices, security policies and access rights. Because this is web-based, an administrator can even access it remotely using a mobile device, according to Stevenson.

Good Mobile Messaging provides an improved user experience on the client side, and links with email systems based on Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino. Licensing costs are expected to be in the range of $50 - $100 (£25 - £50) per user, according to the firm.