3 eyes up small business with phones and email

Mobile operator 3 is eyeing up the small business market, with new services and handsets it hopes will charm SMEs and home workers.

Among the new SME offerings is a mobile email service called Mobile Office Mail. The push service is supplied by vendor Seven and works with Exchange and Lotus based systems.

The 3G mobile operator also has an offering for email addicts that prefer a POP 3 forwarding service, called Mobile Mail. 3 is to start flogging data bundles to SMEs too.

On the hardware front, the operator has lined up two business handhelds for its new SME charm offensive, both sporting Qwerty keyboards - the Nokia E61 and the Windows-based Qtek 9000, made by HTC.

Both phones will work with the push email services. 3 plans to make all new devices compatible with Mobile Mail in the next few months.