Visto is acquiring Good Technology, the company Motorola bought just about two years ago, giving Visto a leg up in its competition against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We’re very excited about this. It’s a great expansion of our business,” said Doug Brackbill, chief marketing officer at Visto. The acquisition doubles the head count of Visto, bringing it to more than 400.
Good’s technology has been enterprise focused, while Visto’s is more for consumers or pro-sumers. The combination gives Visto better access to Good’s customers, which include U.S. carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and enables the company to bring new enterprise solutions to Visto customers that include the likes of Vodafone Group and T-Mobile International.
Once the acquisition closes at the end of this month, it will end all litigation that was going on between the companies. Visto over the years has challenged many mobile e-mail solution providers over patent infringement claims; litigation with RIM is still ongoing.
Of course, RIM isn’t Visto’s only source of competition. Device makers are getting more aggressive in the space. Last week, Nokia, which acquired Intellisync in 2006, said two of its new Eseries devices, the E75 and E55, will ship with the company’s new e-mail user interface, giving consumers access to both consumer and corporate e-mail.
While device makers often position their solutions as platform independent, the perception is their solutions are tied to certain devices. Brackbill says an advantage for Visto is its device independence, and that’s appealing to IT managers and carriers. Visto’s solution works with more than 400 devices and various platforms, including Java, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and it’s adding support for Android.
Visto’s solution also can integrate across e-mail providers, giving end-users access to multiple personal and business e-mail accounts on one device, similar to other mobile e-mail solutions.
The world of mobile e-mail remains a highly competitive one, with many companies saying they want to go after the mass market.
Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of U.K.-based mobile e-mail and synchronization specialist Synchronica, said Visto seems to be locking itself into the enterprise space with this latest deal. “From a technical perspective, I don’t see many synergies, just a lot of overlap,” he said in an e-mailed statement, adding that integrating two proprietary mobile e-mail systems into a single platform will be a “technical nightmare.”
Brackbill said from the beginning, the company can continue to operate the enterprise and consumer services without any disruption, and it will look “very seamless.”
Filed Under: Infrastructure
