Openwave secures email contract from Telstra

Australian telco Telstra said it had selected Californian-based communications industry software provider Openwave as the preferred supplier for what it described as the "solution definition" stage of its new email platform.

Ted Pretty, Telstra Technology Innovation and Product group managing director, said Openwave has secured preferred supplier status after beating out "high quality proposals" from a range of other tenderers.

The selection places the company in the box seat to secure the multi-million dollar deal to supply the software component of the new platform.

A Telstra spokesperson declined to comment on reports the other tenderers included Sun Microsystems, with its iPlanet software.

The carrier committed last year to spend up to AU$100m on a wide-ranging improvement programme for BigPond, of which the new email platform is the centrepiece. Other initiatives include major upgrades to billing and activation systems and the introduction of new customer information services that enable Telstra to deliver information and updates directly to customer desktops.

"Openwave will assist Telstra in scoping out the appropriate architecture for the platform and the associated work schedule and implementation timetable," Pretty said.

Pretty added that a range of improvements made since early last year, including capacity increases for the BigPond platform, enhancements to network security systems and strengthening of network monitoring capacity had "greatly strengthened BigPond's resistance to current and future spam/virus attacks".

By ZDNet Australia staff writers. For more news from Australia click here.