The delivery of electronic messaging and other services to mobile devices has evolved greatly in the past two decades. Initially, the delivery of mail, calendar, and contact information was limited to desktop synchronization with the device. The delivery of over-the-air services was limited greatly through proprietary devices such as the Blackberry and the Blackberry Enterprise Server technology. As mobile device technology evolved, the expansion of devices and varying operating systems has driven providers of electronic messaging services to expand offerings to allow for the use of varied devices to deliver services.

The services that were provided initially were limited and required proprietary server technology such as Good Technology to deliver a usable electronic messaging, calendar, and contact client with functional security. One example of this security capability is the ability to remove corporate sensitive information (wipe) from the devices in case they were stolen or lost. To help customers with mobile access, vendors of messaging systems, such as IBM and Microsoft, began to introduce technology to deliver information to the devices. The IBM approach was to add a service to the Domino Server offering to provide the messaging resources to non-Blackberry devices, such as iPhone, Android, or Windows Mobile.

The IBM Notes Traveler service was introduced as an add-on to the base IBM Domino server product. Initially, the technology was focused on delivering electronic messaging, calendar, and contact services to iOS devices. As the technology matured, the IBM Notes Traveler service expanded its offering and now offers a fully functioning environment, including the introduction of a standalone client for Android devices to ensure compatibility across vendors.