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Good Technology Inc. this week will introduce an enhanced version of its GoodLink remote data access device and server software, which compete against Research In Motion Ltd.s popular BlackBerry platform.
GoodLink Version 3.7 supports Wi-Fi connectivity, said officials at the Santa Clara, Calif., company. To that end, the company is announcing GoodLink support for Hewlett-Packard Co.s iPaq h6315 Pocket PC device, which supports Wi-Fi and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). GoodLink support also is now available on Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.s i700 smart phone. For the future, the company plans to support the upcoming Siemens 1700 from Siemens AG and PalmOne Inc.s Treo 650, which is due by the end of the month.
Customers often cite the wide choice of device support as the reason to go with Good instead of RIM, which does make some of its client code available to third-party hardware companies but provides only native access support for its own BlackBerry devices.
“I started to have the problem of having to support multiple platforms,” said Eric Martin, vice president of IT and business systems at M.W. Manufacturing Inc., in Rocky Mount, Va., who switched from RIM to Good last summer and plans to replace the companys BlackBerrys with PalmOne Treo devices. “I was carrying a BlackBerry, a phone and a PalmPilot around. At that point, I decided that enough was enough.”
The new version of GoodLink includes several features that make the user interface more like a miniature desktop version of Microsoft Corp.s Outlook.
The software lets users view their calendars a full week at a time and use a preview pane to scroll through their schedules without having to view individual appointments.
The new version of GoodLink lets users flag messages as a reminder to follow up on them and to sort messages by flag. There are also new indicators that show whether messages have already been replied to or forwarded.
Finally, the software includes an Out of Office Assistant for users who tend to forget to set their out-of-office message before they leave the office.
On the setup side, the company has added new features to its Management Console to simplify configuration, officials said. And for easier remote management, Goods Web-based Monitoring Portal now includes a server dashboard view and various filtering options that expedite access to information, officials said.
Officials said that future versions of GoodLink will focus on access to enterprise applications other than e-mail and that the company is working closely with several software companies to make that happen by early next year.
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