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Good 6.0 takes smartphones behind the firewall

Corporate applications and documents will be just as accessible to Good-equipped smartphones users as e-mail with the new release of the software.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit

Motorola's Good Technology group hopes its latest update will eliminate the moment of terror experienced by a traveling salesperson who realizes the slide deck got left back at the office.

Good's smartphone e-mail software, shown here, will now let you access corporate applications and files without third-party VPN software. Motorola Good Technology Group

Good 6.0 will now allow Windows Mobile smartphone users to access corporate applications and their companies' shared network resources over the same secure connection that delivers their e-mail. This would eliminate the need for VPN (virtual private network) software on smartphones, said Dan Rudolph, director of product marketing for Good.

Good's software allows Windows Mobile and Palm users to get their corporate e-mail on their handhelds, as an alternative to Research in Motion's BlackBerry experience. Despite its affiliation with Motorola, Good doesn't do the soup-to-nuts smartphone experience that RIM provides; it just makes the software.

The e-mail portion of Good 6.0 hasn't changed all that much since the 5.0 release, Rudolph said, although the IT department can now customize the home screen as it sees fit. The real change is the addition of the Good Mobile Connection technology, which allows smartphone users to tap into the same secure pipe that transmits their e-mail to access files and applications behind the firewall. Rudolph promises this experience is transparent to the user, without requiring any sort of log-in procedure.

The new version also allows IT managers to use a Web application to track and control the Good-equipped devices on their network, and improves the reporting capabilities available to those managers, Rudolph said.