IQMax has announced that it is working with Microsoft Corporation and Verizon Wireless to deliver enterprise podcasting through its IQChannels collaborative rich media application.

IQChannels, powered by IQMax’s enterprise mobile platform, lets rich media content (voice, video, images, text, etc.) to be distributed to employees on their mobile devices in a secure, managed environment. Content that can be delivered include company announcements, internal sales and training programs, sales and customer support content and any other information an organization wants to deliver to mobile end users.

The application is an end to end Microsoft solution that runs on Smartphones and Pocket PC devices utilizing Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Media Player.

IQChannels can also be used as a Sales Force Automation tool delivering contextually linked information to a specific sales event. For example, a sales rep could pull up a list of customer appointments on a mobile device, select a customer and IQChannels will deliver specific rich media content customized and designed specifically for that unique customer presented on the sales rep’s mobile device.

According to the company, their solution has a number of advantages over iPods related to the delivery of podcast and or RSS type content. IQChannels allows users to store content on removable storage cards, offering users the ability to store a sizable amount of content for viewing on their mobile devices. IQChannels also allows the distributed content to be protected through encryption, preventing non-authorized distribution of sensitive materials. And unlike an iPod or MP3 device, IQChannels, content can be synced in a wired environment using either a card reader or wirelessly through Wi-Fi or Broadband wireless access, allowing the end user to access content anywhere, anyplace, and anytime.

IQChannels can also allow an end user to view “live” content that is streamed on the mobile device and is not limited to static content that is downloaded to the device from a desktop computer. This unique feature allows the user to access any additional content necessary when out in the field anywhere, anytime at a time and place that is convenient for the user. IQChannels’ flexible delivery model can deliver content that is managed and pushed to end users by an administrator or is subscribed to by an end user on the mobile device. It also has an audit trail feature that allows an administrator to track the viewing activity of each individual user. For example, using this feature an administrator can keep track of what content is viewed by each individual user and how long that specific content was viewed. Finally, IQChannels features interactive functionality allowing end users to view content on their mobile device and then interact with that content and communicate interactively with content providers through Instant Messaging, e-Mail, XML, or by simply making a phone call using their mobile device.