• by July 20, 2007

Mobile email over everyday cell phones is about to become a huge growth area, according to a new white paper prepared by consultants Frost & Sullivan for mobile open source software firm Funambol.

F&S projected that mobile email will grow 24% annually for the next four years through 2010 to $16.5 billion--with the consumer portion leading the way post-2008. Up until then, F&S said, the category will continue to be fueled by enterprise users of the BlackBerry and similar devices.

Comparing mobile email growth to other forms of mobile messaging, F&S noted that SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service) will only grow at a 1% rate through 2010--to $47 billion and $23.4 billion, respectively. However, the largest messaging growth of all will come in MIM (mobile instant messaging)--up 65%, to $15 billion.

Said F&S Vice President and Chief Analyst J. Gerry Purdy, the report's co-author: "Consumer email will join enterprise email as standard on mobile devices in the coming years. Mobile email that leverages open source and standards has the best chance for rapid adoption."

In addition to supporting open source-based mobile email, Purdy offered these suggestions to mobile operators and service providers:

"aggressively market mobile email by creating plans structured towards specific market segments"

use "creative pricing and packaging. For example, mobile carriers and service providers might not charge directly for mobile email, yet they can still benefit from increased data and SMS feeds (as SMS can be used to alert subscribers of new email)."