BARCELONA—Microsoft announced a stronger push into mobile messaging for businesses, including new devices and upgrades for wireless operators, on Monday at the 3GSM World Congress wireless conference, in an effort to dethrone BlackBerry maker Research In Motion as the mobile email king.

The Redmond software giant is only one of several companies trying to compete with RIM’s more than 4 million BlackBerry users for the current estimated 5 million to 10 million mobile email subscribers.

Phone makers Nokia, Palm, and RIM, along with software sellers Visto, Good Technology, and Microsoft, are all fighting for a market that could reach 850 million subscribers by 2009.

But RIM’s legal issues with NTP, which could see the Waterloo, Canada-based company shut down its BlackBerry business in the United States over a patent infringement lawsuit, is adding to its competitor’s drive to move in (see RIM Hears Good News).

Last week Microsoft said it was strengthening its intellectual property in this space, seemingly a direct response to being sued by mobile email company Visto, an affiliate of NTP (see Redmond Hikes Patent Defense).

For now, Microsoft only has several hundred thousand users, but is hoping that cheap, easy upgrades and new technology will convince customers to sign up.

Microsoft said it is upgrading its customers to “direct push technology,” which pushes emails to the device, a technology that has long been supplied by RIM.

Free Upgrades

Cingular, Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodafone said their subscribers using Windows Mobile 5.0 would all be upgraded for free.

The push technology will also be shipped on four devices: Hewlett-Packard’s iPAQ hw6900 Mobile Messenger, Gigabyte Communications’ g-Smart, the ASUS P305 smart phone, and the Fujitsu Siemens FS Pocket LOOX.

HTC also said it would design a whole portfolio of devices using the technology for its wireless operator customers in the second quarter of this year.

“Microsoft’s option is cheaper than RIM, and offers broader device choices,” said Scott Horn, general manager of Microsoft’s mobile embedded division.

On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to make more announcements about mobile business products.

Mobile Workers

Businesses are searching for cheaper, easier ways to connect with workers on the road (see Serving the Mobile Workforce).

IDC has projected that the population of mobile workers will increase by 30 percent, from 650 million worldwide in 2004 to more than 850 million in 2009—about one-quarter of the global work force.

According to the research firm Datamonitor, there are roughly 650 million corporate email inboxes worldwide. Assuming that at least 35 to 40 percent of these inboxes could potentially be mobilized, the addressable market for enterprise mobile email is about 260 million subscriptions.

Mobile operators are in a position to make the most of the explosive growth anticipated for mobile email. Researchers at Datamonitor expect mobile operators’ revenues from enterprise mobile email to surpass $600 million by 2009.