Mobile Computing: Wireless E-Mail Attachments on a Palm

Feature: Wireless E-Mail Attachments on a Palm

You're expecting the boss to e-mail a Word file to you this afternoon. She wants you to review it, make changes, and send it back as soon as possible. But it's a beautiful afternoon, so you slip into your shorts, slather on suntan lotion, throw your Palm in a backpack, and head for the beach.

In earlier days, such actions would be tantamount to career suicide. But two new offerings that combine Palm OS applications and e-mail forwarding services, DataViz's Inbox To Go and Corsoft's Aileron, now promise the ultimate in mobile computing liberation--the ability to receive, edit, and send e-mail file attachments from anyplace you can make a wireless connection.

Inbox To Go and Aileron are aimed at consumers and small businesses who use Microsoft Outlook as their Microsoft Exchange, POP3, or IMAP4 e-mail client and have an always-on Internet connection. Aileron also supports the Outlook Express e-mail client and is available in an enterprise version as well.

Inbox To Go is being offered as a free download trial until October, when the product is expected to become commercially available. Pricing will be announced then. Aileron service is $30 per month for individual users; enterprise accounts are also available. Aileron can be purchased for $30 or as a bundle with Quickoffice for $50.

I tested Inbox To Go and Aileron using a Palm M515, a Novatel Minstrel wireless modem, and the EarthLink Wireless network. Both offerings allowed me to wirelessly send, edit, and receive file attachments with a minimum of fuss. Of the two, I preferred Inbox To Go because of its intuitive interface.

What's The Big Deal?

For Pocket PC users with wireless connections, e-mail attachments are no big deal, as Microsoft's Inbox e-mail application for Pocket PCs has long offered native support for Microsoft Word and Excel file attachments.

But until recently, support for e-mail attachments on Palm OS devices has been limited at best. Palm's MultiMail Deluxe e-mail client, for instance, which ships with the wireless Palm i705, offers limited support for attachments (see the Handhelds section for more details). Simply put, Palm OS devices have lacked e-mail attachment support because of the need to convert attached files from PC formats into documents that a Palm device can read.

Inbox To Go and Aileron represent a breakthrough for wireless e-mail attachments on Palm OS devices by tackling the tricky file-conversion problem, though each handles it differently. Exactly how these conversions are accomplished is a complicated matter. Suffice it to say that incoming messages (and attachments) are forwarded from your PC's e-mail client to DataViz or Corsoft servers, then you pick up those messages via a wireless connection. File conversions are handled automatically either on your PC or on a secure DataViz or Corsoft server. Either way, you continue to receive your messages and attachments on your PC as you normally would, so the message forwarding causes no disruption to your regular in-box.

File Types Supported

Both programs rely on other Palm OS applications to open the file attachments on the PDA. Inbox To Go requires Documents To Go 4.0, a DataViz Palm OS application that lets you read Microsoft Office files on your PDA. With Inbox To Go and Documents To Go on your Palm OS device, you can receive, edit, and upload Word and Excel files; receive, open, and upload image JPEG, bitmap, and GIF files; and read but not edit or upload files in PowerPoint and PDF formats.

For example, an e-mail received wirelessly via Inbox To Go on your Palm OS PDA might include a link to a Word file that the sender attached to the message. Clicking the link launches Documents To Go on your Palm OS device, in which you can edit the file and save the changes. Using Inbox To Go, you can then attach the revised Word file to a message and transmit the file back to the sender. The file is converted from Documents To Go's format into Microsoft Word on DataViz's server, so the recipient will be able to open the attachment on their PC.

Aileron's support is limited to Word and Excel files, and like Inbox To Go, it requires another program to open and edit those files on your Palm OS device. But Aileron lets you choose the PDA application you want to handle those attachments. For Word files, the choices are Blue Nomad's WordSmith ($30), Cutting Edge Software's Quickword ($20), or Word To Go, which is part of Documents To Go ($50 for the standard edition; $70 for the professional edition). For spreadsheets, you can choose Quicksheet ($30) or Documents To Go. All are available from Handango.

Aileron supports the standard version of Documents To Go only, however, as opposed to the Professional Edition, which is included on many Palm OS devices such as the I705. This means you can receive, edit, and upload Word files via Documents To Go and Aileron, but you can only receive and read (but not edit or upload) Excel attachments. (A Corsoft spokesperson attributed this to a software licensing issue.) The net result: While Aileron gives you more application choices, Inbox To Go provides broader attachment file format support.

Ease of Use

With its intuitive interface and frequent feedback, Inbox To Go is the easier application to use. For example, when you compose a message and click Send, Inbox To Go asks if you want to transmit the message now or put it in the out-box; charts the outgoing message's progress with a fever bar; and provides a dialog box that informs you the message was successfully sent. After hitting the Send button in Aileron, however, the screen returns to the in-box. You must click the Mail button, followed by the Connect button, and after several fever bar updates, click Done. To ascertain that your message was sent, you must go to the out-box to ensure it's empty.

Performance

In general, you can send, receive, open and edit e-mail messages and attachments fairly quickly with either Inbox To Go or Aileron. Because of the bigger screen, full-size keyboards, and faster processors, handling those chores on a PC will always be preferable to using a PDA, of course--except for those times, like a beautiful summer afternoon, when you can't bear to stay in the office.