Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite 8.0
This write up by Rich Tehrani reminded me I should talk about something I use pretty much every day: Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite 8.0. This product as it is today has evolved quite a bit from what it used to be, and it’s taken quite a while to get there.
As you may remember, Intellisync was acquired by Nokia in early 2006. When Nokia had acquired Intellisync, they already had a mobile email solution called Nokia Business Center. Nokia Business Center was a Java-based client that ran on some of the higher-end Nokia phones, but provided an overall excellent email experience, including the ability to “translate” attachments so they could be viewed on devices while transferring a minimal amount of data.
On the other hand, the Intellisync client primarily used the email client and sync services built into the device. This allowed them to be device-agnostic, but provided a less-than-optimal experience, especially when you wanted to do things like move emails into folders or look up contacts in the corporate directory.
One of the primary features in the 8.0 version was the new Symbian client, which took on a lot of the best features from the old Nokia Business Center client. It provides an excellent client for reading email and synchronizing contacts and calendar. The first few K of each email is downloaded. As you read the email, more of the message is downloaded. Attachments are not downloaded automatically, but a couple of clicks will begin the process of downloading the attachments.
One thing I kind of miss is the “attachment conversion.” Since Nokia Business Center came out, the current Series 60 3rd Edition devices all come with the necessary software to read Microsoft Office and PDF files, so in theory this “conversion” process is unnecessary.
The email experience is very blackberry-like: email, contacts, calendar, and files are synced in the background as you are using the device. When a new mail comes in, your device vibrates, blinks it’s status light (if it exists), and the heading will show on the standby screen of your device.
I have not personally played with the Fixed-Mobile Convergence features that are present in 8.0, mostly because I am not anywhere near a Nokia office where these trials are running. I am happy enough with the email, though.
