Patent ID: 6886030

Claim:
An e-mail notification and messaging system for providing e-mail messages and e-mail notifications from an e-mail service system to local client devices of a plurality of users, the system comprising: an e-mail service system configured to receive e-mail messages for a plurality of users and configured to provide e-mail notifications and e-mail messages to the local client devices of the plurality of users; a given local client device from among the local client devices that is configured to receive e-mail notifications from the e-mail service system and that is configured to retrieve e-mail messages from the e-mail service system; a first communications link over which the local client device retrieves e-mail messages from the e-mail service system; and a second communications link separate from the first communications link over which the e-mail service system provides e-mail notifications to the local client device, wherein the second communications link is a low bandwidth communications link.