Research In Motion (RIM) nemesis Visto has become the first company to earn 'Symbian Approved' status for its push e-mail solutions. The thumbs up results from the successful completion of the most widely used smartphone platform developer's new Symbian Email Validation Program by the mob-e-mail provider. The program aims to accelerate the adoption of push e-mail by users of handsets built on Symbian's eponymous smartphone OS.

With push e-mail, when a mail server receives a message it is automatically sent to a mobile device instead of the user having to manually pull it down or schedule retrievals at set intervals.

While push technology has long been available for Symbian smartphones—from a number of different vendors: including Visto, but also Consilient, DataViz, Good Technology, Intellisync (now owned by Nokia), RIM (through that company's BlackBerry Connect program), and Seven for example—accrediation promises to help vendors like Visto to get their mobile e-mail solutions for the Symbian platform to market faster.

That's because the Symbian stamp of approval is supposed to indicate to phone manufacturers, system integrators and network operators that an e-mail solution meets industry minimum standards of functionality.

Symbian developed the guidelines for the program, which was launched in February, in collaboration with the companies listed above plus a few others like iAnywhere and QuickOffice. The guidelines are said to cover the complete push e-mail user experience - from installation and device compatibility to minimum service functionality.

Visto's mobile e-mail technology supports over 100 different wireless devices and a wide variety of platforms in addition to Symbian, including Windows Mobile, the Palm OS, and J2ME, in addition to WAP browsers. POP3, Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino e-mail servers are supported.

The company is traditionally a white-label vendor that sells its wares through wireless carriers under their brand names. (It announced its first self-branded service - Visto Mobile - for the Chinese market last spring.)

Visto launched a lawsuit against RIM a few months ago, after winning a patent infringement case against fellow wireless e-mail provider Seven Networks. The company claims RIM infringed on the very same patents as Seven. RIM countered a few days later with a motion stating Visto's patents weren't valid to start with, and may sue the Redwood City, CA company for trampling on its own patents.

Back in August Strategy Analytics reported that the installed base of mobile e-mail users would double this year. The research firm said 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; as both are long-term enablers that'll put a good wireless e-mail experience well within reach of the average business user.