The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) has signed a three-year agreement for the implementation and support of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server solution with GO plc to meet the increasing demand for secure remote email communication.

Although MITA is already offering the facility to access e-mail over mobile devices, the need to introduce a BlackBerry service was felt since this technology offers a higher degree of seamless security to users who, due to their work, need to access their government e-mail account while on the move.

This agreement will allow MITA to provide a continuous and reliable service to the public sector. GO will be supported through their strategic relationship with Emitac Mobile Solutions (EMS), a Dubai based solutions and service provider who are also the first Strategic Channel Partner of Research In Motion, the developers of BlackBerry.

MITA offers its email services to approximately 25,000 users. The magnitude of MITA’s email service is shown by the amounts of emails sent and received on a daily basis. The government receives an average of 2.5 million emails per day. This includes an average of 1.75 million spam mail which is stopped/tagged daily. The amount of mails sent is, on average, 195,000 per day. As email becomes a more critical component, the consequences of downtime are getting worse and therefore MITA ensures high availability email. During 2008, email availability was 99.85 per cent (this includes scheduled/planned downtime).