Starting June 19th, the carrier will offer owners of these devices access to corporate e-mail via Redmond's Direct Push Technology, a feature of Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) upgrade for Exchange Server 2003.

In addition to e-mail, the solution pushes updates to calendar items, contacts and tasks as they arrive directly from the Exchange Server to the 8125 and 2125. User will also be able to perform Global Address Lookups over the air, which enables them to send e-mails to anyone in their company even if they do not have the recipient's contact details on their device.

MSFP also enhances device management and security features for administrators, like over-the-air password policy enforcement and remote wipe of smartphone's data in case of loss or theft. Just yesterday, Microsoft announced plans to bring additional mobile features to the next edition of Exchange, version 2007. These include search support, improved HTML rendering, and user-performed device wipes.

"Microsoft Direct Push Technology delivers a great wireless email capability that is seamlessly integrated with Exchange Server 2003. This greatly improves the ability of Cingular corporate customers to rapidly deploy wireless e-mail by simplifying the enterprise messaging architecture," according to Michael Woodward, Executive Director of Mobile Professional Solutions, for Cingular Wireless.

On the 19th, current Cingular customers will be able to download the Direct Push update. For new B2B customers, the client software will be included on the 8125 and 2125 Cingular devices—The server software is already bundled in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2.

Direct Push will cost $44.99 with a qualifying voice plan for unlimited Internet and e-mail access for the 8125 and $29.99 for the 2125 Woodward said, "We believe this important and powerful addition to Cingular's business solutions portfolio will lead to broader adoption of wireless e-mail in the enterprise sector."

With push, when a 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.

Microsoft only started providing push e-mail support to Exchange through the wireless messaging-centric Exchange Server Service Pack 2 on the backend last fall. In February, it unveiled an on-device client for Windows Mobile smartphones to take advantage of push e-mail. Since that time, some carriers and manufactures have announced a Direct Push client or AKU2 (Adaptation Kit Update) upgrade for their smartphones.

Cingular 8125
As with many other Pocket PC Phones, the 8125 features a QWERTY thumb-keyboard. In the 8125's case (see top image), the design is for thumbsters who prefer their keyboards to slide out from underneath their handheld's display, a 2.8-inch, 64k QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) resolution type.

As a Windows Mobile device, you'll be able to choose either portrait or landscape viewing.

Additional features of the 4.32 x 2.32 x 1.0 inch, 5.25 ounce 8100 series include a 195 MHz Texas Instruments OMAP850 processor, 64 MB of RAM, 128 MB of ROM, a minSD slot for additional storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE cellular network support. EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) is a 2.5G standard that delivers download speeds averaging around 125Kbps, with bursts up to 200 Kbps or so.

As is the custom with smartphones nowadays, Cingular offers versions of the 8125 with and without a 1.3-megapixel camera: the 8125 with and the 8100 without. Corporate gatekeepers view features like integrated cameras with an increasingly jaundiced eye. They simply make it too easy for employees to share with others what the enterprise would prefer to keep private.

The device supports multiple audio formats including MP3, AMR, AAC, WAV and WMA, as well as MPEG-4 video streaming through Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. Cingular rates the 8100's 1250mAH Lithium-ion battery for five hours talk and up to seven days standby time.

For more on the 8125, see our review.

Cingular 2125
Unique to the Cingular 2125 is a hump of an antenna on top. This enables the phone to support a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio for use in most international markets. The 2125 is not a Pocket PC Phone. Rather, it falls into the Smartphone category. That means, the device looks and acts more like a traditional mobile phone than PDA: no touchscreen, for example.

What the compact 3.74 ounce 4.57 x 1.81 x 0.69 inch Cingular 2125 does offer is Windows Media Player 10, a 1.3 megapixel camera with video recorder, and Bluetooth for connecting to wireless headsets and printers, for example. There is also a rather large 2.2-inch 240 x 320 pixel (QVGA) display-a Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone advance.

Inside, the Cingular 2125 boasts 64 MB of RAM, 64 MB of ROM, and a TI OMAP 850 200 MHz OMAP processor. Cingular's specifications state it should last for up to four hours of talk and six hours of standby time on a single battery charge.

For more on the 2125, see our review.