Event
Summary
CUPERTINO, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE) - Lexacom and Mirapoint, Inc. have announced
the availability of a solution offering highly secure, easily deployable, and
cost-effective ways for wireless service providers to deliver integrated IP-based
calendaring and messaging services to mobile users.
Market
Impact
Mirapoint
produces turnkey, messaging infrastructure appliances for Internet based messaging,
while Lexacom produces real-time calendaring solutions for the Internet. The
upcoming explosion of wireless access phones (WAP), and Personal Digital Assistants
(PDA) is expected to reach 600 million users by 2003 (probability 75%).
The
need and demand for wireless messaging and calendaring is obvious, but Mirapoint
and Lexacom are relatively unknown in the messaging arena. However, they are
one of the first companies to announce a combined and dedicated effort to produce
a unified messaging solution (UM) targeted specifically at wireless users.
We
expect to see Sendmail, Inc. outperform Mirapoint in Internet messaging infrastructures.
While Mirapoint offers all basic Internet standards such as, POP, IMAP, and
SMTP; Sendmail is light years ahead, not only in name recognition, but also
in installed base. Sendmail, Inc. has already captured over 75% of the Internet's
8,000 plus ISPs and is expected to continue gaining market share.
Microsoft
Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Novell GroupWise already account for real time calendaring
for Wireless Access. However, Lexacom's calendaring system is the calendar behind
Netscape and is neither operating system nor geographically dependent. Lexacom
and Mirapoint certainly have an uphill ride to compete with such major messaging
players. To succeed they must enhance name brand recognition through marketing
and couple it with a promotional pricing structure to increase any existing
installed base.
User
Recommendations
We
recommend that all providers of wireless messaging solutions weigh Mirapoint
and Lexacom's offering against that of a collaboration solution such as Lotus
Notes and Microsoft Exchange. While Lexacom and Mirapoint's package may be appealing,
corporate viability and longevity is unknown. Implementing an unknown system
can potentially be devastating.
If
considering an implementation of Lexacom and Mirapoint, verify through testing
and due diligence that the product both meets your present technical needs and
support requirements, and matches your corporate strategy.