Things Get Good With Cingular

Good Technology on Tuesday finalized a deal with Cingular to directly offer customers of the wireless provider Good's wireless e-mail services. The move puts pressure on rival Research in Motion's BlackBerry that offers similar functionality. But Good's service works pre-existing Palm and Windows-based personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Previously, in order to sign up for Good's wireless e-mail, Cingular customers had to sign to separate contracts with each provider. Under the new agreement, a customer will only have to sign the Cingular contract in order to receive the Good service.

Cingular executive Michael Woodward told Reuters that the Good deal is more about choice than offering a replacement to the BlackBerry. "What we heard our customers saying was that they were looking for some choice, a little bit of flexibility," he said.

Unlike the RIM BlackBerry, Good allows the subscriber to use its service on a variety of devices. The company says this prevents "vendor lock-in," and gives its customers more flexibility in what type of device they can use in order to access mobile data.

Executives at Good have declined to say how many new customers they expect to gain from the Cingular deal; however, chief executive Danny Shader says over 5,000 companies were using the service at the end of April. He also did not rule out deals with other wireless providers, although its primary focus is currently on Cingular.

RIM recently announced that it had over 3 million subscribers to its BlackBerry offerings. Both Good and RIM are targeting businesses - not consumer clients.

In order to use the Good service, Cingular customers will have to pay $44.99 USD per month on top of a qualifying rate plan. Customers will also have to purchase a $1,500 one-year Starter Pak and a one-time $99 per user GoodLink Client Access license. With the Starter Pak comes a full year of IT support from Good, as well as lifetime enterprise support from Cingular Wireless.