Wow, a fancy smchmancy press release:

Cingular Wireless will offer its business customers access to corporate e-mail via Direct Push Technology, a feature of Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 5.0 with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) upgrade, beginning on June 19, 2006.

MSFP has been promised for the Cingular 8125 since it started shipping in February. Right now with the Cingular 8125, you can connect to an Exchange server to get mail but it’s not real Blackberrry-like push, it’s a Cingular wannabe version of it. Or so I’m told, I only get my email via POP or IMAP. But apparently this is a really big deal for those who get their email from work. This will finally make the Windows Mobile devices behave more like a Blackberry in that you don’t have to tell the server “okay, I’m here…give me my mail.”

I’m fine getting my mail through POP/IMAP on the phone the way I have been. We don’t have an Exchange server and there’s no urgent need to add that level of complexity to our email. Hosted POP/IMAP will do.

I’m looking forward to Monday because of what will (hopefully) come with the MSFP upgrade…a ROM upgrade.

If I’m understanding it correctly, HTC (the manufacturer of the Cingular 8125, aka HTC “Wizard”) has had a ROM upgrade available for this device for quite some time. It was then up to the individual carriers who license versions of the phone (Cingular, T-Mobile, Dopad etc.) to come up with the actual upgraded ROM. Folks in the xda-developers forum have taken ROM upgrades designed for other hardware and “adapted” it for use on the Cingular 8125, adding additional features and hacks as they go. Lots of folks have had great success with installing these homemade ROMs. Some haven’t. I decided a while ago to wait for Cingular’s official download so if I have a problem, I can take my non-working brick to a store or call in to support and get help. There are times when I’m willing to be adventurous. Not with my $400 phone that I rely on so much. Cingular’s support is hard enough to deal with when you’re doing it “by the book.”

The ROM upgrade promises better performance and stability. One can hope. We’ll see on Monday.