Patent ID: 7774486

Claim:
A communications system comprising: a plurality of electronic mail (email) data storage devices each using at least one of a plurality of different operating protocols; a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices for accessing email messages stored on said plurality of email data storage devices and each using at least one of the plurality of different operating protocols; and a protocol interface device for processing data in accordance with a multi-layer protocol model and comprising a protocol engine module for communicating with said plurality of email data storage devices using respective operating protocols, a front-end proxy module coupled to said protocol engine and comprising a respective proxy module for communicating with said plurality of mobile wireless communications devices using each different operating protocol, and at least one common core service module coupled to said proxy modules and communicating therewith at a first layer of the multi-layer protocol model and communicating with said protocol engine module at a second layer of the multi-layer protocol model lower than the first layer, and said at least one common core service module comprising a renderer module configurable to define and implement an interface between said proxy modules and said plurality of mobile wireless communications devices for supporting a new different operating protocol.