Windows CE (WinCE) is a capable, general purpose mobile computing platform which, among other applications, comes bundled with an extensible e-mail application named "Inbox."
CDPD, the premier wireless, mobile network with full Internet connectivity has reached critical mass with its large scale deployment and CDPD wireless modems becoming available in ever-shrinking form factors (PCMCIA) with improving power consumption and other characteristics.
Interpersonal messaging is the most important and proven value proposition of the wireless medium. Existing Internet e-mail protocols have built-in assumptions, which makes them sub-optimal for use over wireless networks. The EMSD protocol fills this gap, allowing fully open, extensible (MIME) Internet e-mail connectivity over wireless networks.
Given that the fundamental components outlined above (WinCE, CDPD, EMSD) are real products and technologies, integrating them to create an end-user product is within reach. If the integration is performed properly, the availability of wireless E-mail capability can become straightforward for the end users of this system. Any Windows CE user can purchase a "mobile e-mail kit," which includes a CDPD modem, CDPD account activation and the necessary software add-ons to add the EMSD capability to the palmtop. In fact, there are several channel models which can be used to deliver the wireless messaging capability to the end user, so forming a "mobile e-mail kit" is just one of them. This paper focuses on the technical issues of the integration effort at hand as opposed to marketing and channels issues. A WinCE based EMSD/CDPD wireless messaging solution, when coupled with the back-end EMSD Message Transfer Agent (MTA) offers a strong value proposition with minimal infrastructure. The EMSD MTA can be running at a central server at the CDPD Network Operator site (example mail address: john.doe@emsd.cdpdProvider.net) or as a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) at the Internet ISP or IS Department of an Organization (example mail address: john.doe@emsd.boeing.com).