Dell sets pact with Good Tech

NEW YORK: Dell Computer Corp. unveiled a pact to develop wireless e-mail and messaging systems for corporations with Good Technology, which makes a rival technology to Research In Motion Ltd's BlackBerry device. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, the world's largest personal computer maker, gave no financial details for the strategic alliance. Through the deal, Dell will offer bundled packages of wireless messaging services to business customers, including Good's GoodLink wireless e-mail and data system software.

GoodLink provides mobile workers with continuous access to company data over handheld devices, such as its pocket-sized G100 model. GoodLink synchronizes wireless handhelds with internal servers, without seating them in a cradle or a docking station.

"Our goal is to sell a lot of Dell servers (for internal office networks), a lot of devices on the other end and then partner with companies like Good that helps to glue all that together," Tony Bonadero, a director for wireless and handheld products at Dell, told Reuters.

Some systems will be available in the latter half of 2003, and the G100 will be sold by Dell. Next year, new devices developed in tandem with Good would be available.

"Our focus in 2003 is on the server and the infrastructure. You will not see a wireless or a cellular Axim until sometime in 2004," Bonadero said of Dell's own handheld device.

Companies have warmed to wireless handheld devices as tools to keep sales forces and other mobile employees up to date with critical data, such as inventory figures, or e-mail. Central servers hold the information, while software such as GoodLink enables various devices to stay in touch.

Research In Motion (RIM) has succeed with corporate clients with its BlackBerry device, a machine popular with the legal and brokerage industries that lets users send and receive e-mail wirelessly. RIM also sell its own software that runs on the computer that manage the data.

Dell currently sells RIM products, and said it will continue to do so. Good's GoodLink service also works on BlackBerry handhelds. For closely held Good, of Sunnyvale, California, the pact links it with the might of Dell's brand and corporate relationships. At the same time it scores over RIM, a rival with which it is enjoined in a bitter legal patent battle.

"Good, selling ... with a small sales force, has grown from 20 accounts to over 750 accounts in the last 10 months," said Danny Shader, chief executive of Good. "I can only imagine if we partner with a company with the reach of Dell that we ought to do better than that." A RIM spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

Earlier this month, a California court ordered one of the four lawsuits that Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has filed against Good to proceed to trial. RIM must also contend as well with Dell, whose entry into the personal digital assistant, or PDA, market last year caused a stir, thanks to its ability to gains share by delivering low-cost product.

"There is the potential that Dell can be aggressive in the wireless space, much as they have been aggressive in the PDA space," said Alex Slawsby, smart handheld analyst at research firm IDC.