October 18, 2007 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Web hosting provider 1&1, a business unit of United Internet, has partnered with Funambol to offer BlackBerry-like services, it was reported recently. The two companies will cooperate on providing “push email” to the 71 million mailboxes managed by 1&1 and providing personal information management tools such as calendars and contacts.
Funambol's software is based on the open SynclML standard and the organization is noted for its Open Source approach to software development. It currently contends to having a 10,000-strong open-source developer community testing its software on a wide range of telephones. With analysts estimating the company to have “several hundreds of thousands of customers,” it is also estimated developers have downloaded Funambol’s software over 1 million times.
United Internet is a German company offering a range of products and services including Internet access, web hosting, information management, and hosting resale. The company currently caters for over 23,000 resellers. Funambol is an Italian company that moved to Silicon Valley in 2005 to find funding for its activities. The company allows its software to be used free of charge but charges for commercial licenses.
