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Strategy Analytics reports that the installed base of mobile e-mail users will double in 2006. The research firm also said Research In Motion's (RIM) share of the market dropped during the first half this year from about 65 to 59 percent.

This research firm says the growth of the market is being driven by "Hosted Exchange Server" ASPs that control nearly a third of the business e-mail accounts and the emergence of open mobile e-mail standards. Both are long-term enablers that'll put a good wireless e-mail experience well within reach of the average business user, according to Cliff Raskind, director of Strategy Analytics Wireless Enterprise Strategies service.

"Maturing open mobile e-mail standards and notably more aggressive mobility plays among e-mail ASP's will prove to be major catalysts in mobilizing over 15 percent of business inboxes by 2009," said Raskind.

The research firm emphasizes that RIM's place in the mob-e-mail hierarchy isn't in any kind of danger, as the company's drop in share had little to do with the quality of its hardware and services, but rather with the buildup of the wireless e-mail market as whole.

"This just means that RIM will have a slightly smaller piece of an ever-expanding pie," commented Raskind to Untrung. "It's generally agreed that their amazing market share is not sustainable over the long run. That's not to say that they can't remain the dominant market leader over the coming years."

Instead, the growth poses more of a risk to white label suppliers; those who sell their mobile e-mail wares to operators who turn around and offer them to subscribers under their own brand names.

Raskind explained, "RIM should succeed in protecting the high end of the market they now own if they continue to execute well. These trends present a larger threat to Visto, Intellisync & Seven's 19 percent 'carrier white label' share of the market."

Strategy Analytics cites OMA DS (Device Synch, formerly SynchML) and particularly P-IMAP / LEMONADE as crucial open mobile e-mail standards that could hurt these vendors businesses. RIM's competition still has a long way to catch the market leader. The company's closest rival is Nokia Intellisync with 9 percent, followed by Good Technology (8 percent), Microsoft (7 percent), Seven (7 percent), iAnywhere (5 percent), and Visto (3 percent). All others accounted for the last 2 percent.

Members of this last group should benefit the most from the current boom in wireless e-mail. It includes open standard pioneers like Consilient, Synchronica and Funambol, which will show a significant upside potential in the long term, in addition to ASP's like Mail2Web, MailStreet and 4Smartphone that'll boost mobile e-mail adoption in the short-to-medium term.

Back in March, Consilient introduced Consilient Push, a new open standard wireless e-mail service. It was the first mob-e-mail solution based on the P-IMAP.

The company said the aim of P-IMAP was to free companies from expensive proprietary push e-mail plans, like RIM's, yet to be able to support both corporate and POP3 e-mail.

Consilient emphasized to PDAStreet how open standards would help to lower the per-user cost to $3-$5 per month from today's typical push e-mail $40-$50 range. That way mobile e-mail would become another tick box item when you sign up for a mobile phone.

The company argued the lack of open standards was why mobile e-mail hadn't reached its full potential, even though so much money had been invested. Consilient CEO Tevor Adey said to PDAStreet, "We've learned a lot about why there are only 10 million subscribers in the push e-mail space. We know the recipe to open it up to the hundreds of millions."