Funambol Inc, the company behind the open source project that provides software for cloud synch and push email for mobile phones, is to introduce a hosted version of the commercial carrier edition software.
It means mobile operators and service providers can turn on a mobile cloud synch and push email service, without having to buy and install hardware and software.
The service can be used to push email to a variety of end-points such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Win Mobile and Symbian (Nokia) mobiles. It is marketed as an alternative to use of proprietary synch and push email software.
The company said that its Hosted Funambol services can be localised for different languages and is also easily transitioned from a hosted service to an on-premises deployment as customer needs change.
There is a rising amount of interest in Funambol’s open source software apparently, with the company claiming last month that downloads had grown 34% and active servers increased 42% over a period of three months.
Among the projects created by Funambol’s developer community, AvatarGrabber currently tops the charts as the most popular mobile open source social networking application.
It enables Facebook, MySpace and other social network profile pictures to automatically synch with mobile phones. As people change their profile picture on a social network, their photo is updated in other people’s mobile phone address books.
