Earlier this year, the Mill Valley, Calif.-based firm inked an agreement to integrate Stalker's CommuniGate Pro messaging server into the back-end service of wireless consumer technology player Danger, Inc.'s hiptop device -- a long-awaited (and slightly delayed) combination mobile phone and Web- and AOL Instant Messenger-enabled PDA.

That deal led to the October release of a rebranded hiptop by wireless service provider T-Mobile. Marketed as the Sidekick, the device features e-mail capabilities courtesy of CommuniGate Pro, which resides on Danger's servers. While relying on CommuniGate to handle e-mail delivery, Danger's technology compresses and formats e-mails and e-mail attachments for easy readability on the portable device.

"It is through Danger's relationships with technology leaders like Stalker Software that we are able to bring a complete, end-to-end wireless solution to market," said John Arledge, vice president of business development at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Danger. "We chose Stalker Software because of its excellent technology and proven performance with service providers."

In addition to T-Mobile, which is a unit of Deutsche Telekom, Stalker also stands to benefit from reselling partnerships with additional wireless carriers that Danger is expected to announce in coming months. (One of those is likely to be Orange SA -- like T-Mobile, it's also an investor in Danger.)

Ensuring compatibility between the systems necessitated a handful of modifications to IMAP handling in CommuniGate Pro, said Stalker Sales Engineer Philip Slater. However, he added that the additions would become standard in future versions of the software.

"Our normal customers will benefit, and it'll be beneficial in other instances such as this," Slater said.

In addition to the distribution agreement with Danger, Stalker also is working to beef up CommuniGate's own messaging features.

In addition to CommuniGate Pro's support for SMS, Stalker in September announced that it would add Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) capabilities to its server. Currently seeing interest in Europe and Asia, MMS is pegged by some analysts as the successor to SMS even in the sluggish U.S. wireless market -- thanks to the format's ability to deliver longer, more complex messages, code, and graphics.

Stalker also is aiming to step into the instant messaging market, and is working in partnership with enterprise IM vendor WiredRed.

"It's very new, very exploratory," said Tom Toperczer, vice president of sales and marketing at San Diego, Calif.-based WiredRed. "There is something cooking, however. There are some pretty obvious good ideas of what we can do in terms of product integration and end-user capabilities."

While the partners reveal few details, at least one feature likely to come from the work will be the integration of WiredRed's e/pop IM server with Stalker's built-in directory. e/pop relies on directory services -- such as LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory or Novell NDS -- to provide for enterprise authentication and presence features.

WiredRed's e/pop also supports application sharing and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) conferencing, though it's not known whether those features are being considered in the effort with Stalker.

CommuniGate Pro, for its part, has since last month offered a groupware add-on, which supports calendaring and shared folder features in the Microsoft Outlook client. The combined suite is positioned as a low-cost replacement for Microsoft Exchange. However, the Redmond, Wash. software giant is planning to revamp its messaging product lineup in coming quarters with enhanced capabilities -- including application sharing and VoIP.

However, Stalker's vice president of business development, Jacinta Tobin, would only say that Stalker is "looking in all directions of our product and what third-party interfaces we want to invest in."

A working product using WiredRed technology could be developed by within the year, she added, although she said that before marketing such an offering, Stalker would be inclined to wait to ensure it sees "a direct customer imperative."

"We're very much responsive to what the market demand is," Tobin said. "From a technology standpoint, we're ready in many, many directions, and just waiting to see large-scale applications."

At any rate, the early moves into groupware and instant messaging come as the company is seeking to establish a greater foothold in the enterprise space, which is dominated by the likes of Microsoft, Novell and IBM. At present, much of Stalker's client base includes subscriber installations at ISPs and universities.

Additionally, while the partnership with Danger on the surface seems a consumer-focused play, Tobin said Stalker senses an opportunity to serve enterprise users through that channel as well.

"The demographic that Danger is targeting is about age 30, but we're finding that age group is upwardly stretching to include 35 to 40 -- some enterprise users as well," she said. "It really appeals to professional users."

Christopher Saunders is managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.