I apologise in advance for this question being tenuously related to
Gentoo... My justification is only that I really like my Gentoo-based
Postfix /dovecot mail-server... but I also want to push emails to a
connected Windows Mobile 5 PDA/phone.
Historically mobile devices have polled for email - which kind-of
worked... but was far from ideal as it introduced unnecessary delays if
the poll-interval was too long - and killed battery life if the poll
interval is too short (as well as running up bandwidth bills). Windows
Mobile 5 touts a new "Direct Push" technology - which, as far as I can
tell, is an Internet-based protocol which alerts the mobile device to
establish a tcp connection and then listen on it waiting for a new
message. I understand that push-email in the past was synchronised
using SMS messages to force a poll - but that (expensive) option is now
considered deprecated. The problem I have with "Direct Push" is that
documentation is extremely scarce; frequently contradictory - and, it
seems, always Microsoft centric and assuming closed-shop IT. The sales
pitch from phone/network providers seems usually to be "We envision all
of our potential customers already have Microsoft Exchange, and can
apply the 'Direct Push' option pack." - which is bizarre and infuriating...
Is there a way to do "Direct Push" with Gentoo? While I'm aware of the
standard techniques to interact from traditional email client hosts,
email access from PDAs introduces the additional complexity of managing
battery life on the mobile device. I'd like to use the supplied Windows
Mobile 5 software on the mobile device.... is there an open source
alternative to avoid me having to switch to Exchange for my mailserver?
Do other Gentooists use push-email to a mobile device? Is the best
option to plumb for more proprietary client-side software such as
"ChatterMail" [ http://www.chatteremail.com/ ] ?
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