After many months, even years, of promising an e-mail push technology equivalent to what the RIM Blackberry service offers, it looks like Palm has finally done it. At least it has come close, with a management component still missing. Available next week, The Treo 680 and Treo 700p Smartphones will update Palm"s VersaMail to include Microsoft Direct Push technology. Although the push capability was promised via the next Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync Update, the push component of ActiveSync was delayed. The benefits of push over push-like are in battery life and real-time immediacy of e-mail.
Prior to the availability of Direct Push, a device had to remain on and ready to receive a packet from the server, with the server essentially asking whether the user was available to receive an e-mail. The necessity of always waiting for a ping reduces battery life. Scheduled e-mail delivery also uses power by forcing the system to check for e-mails even when no new messages have arrived at the server. In contrast, push technology wakes the device up with the arrival of the e-mail.