BlackBerry Connect Spotted in Action

Posted By: Ryan Thursday, February 16, 2006 12:01:19 PM

BlackBerry Connect for the Palm Treo 650 We've been hearing for ages that Palm and PalmSource have been working with RIM on bringing BlackBerry Connect software to the Palm OS. Yet after years of press releases from both companies, we have never actually seen an actual working version. Adrew from Treonauts just caught a glimpse of BlackBerry Connect running on a Treo 650 at 3GSM. Apparently, it works as a plug-in to Palm's VersaMail application, and messages are pushed to the device in the usual BlackBerry style. Palm has previously stated they would be offering the service in early 2006.

Through RIM's BlackBerry Connect licensing program, Palm will enable its Treo 650 and future Palm OS based Treo smartphones with secure, push-based wireless email via BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The solution will enable the following:

push-based email using BlackBerry Connect with Palm's VersaMail email client;
support for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino;
wireless calendar synchronization;
remote address lookup of corporate email directory;
convenient email-attachment viewing;
Triple DES encryption; and
IT policy enforcement and commands (such as remotely disabling or wiping email and PIM data from a device in the event it is lost or stolen).

BlackBerry Connect for Palm OS will be available for new and existing Treo 650 users through select carriers. Pricing and distribution details will be provided at a later date.

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Damn carriers

Hal2000 @ 2/16/2006 6:27:16 PM #

I would love to drop my company BB phone for this.

To those about to first post, we salute you>

Zodiac2/T616/WiFi/2+2 Gigs/In Business Use/Is that an SD card sticking out of your pocket or...

Why wait and wonder?

cervezas @ 2/16/2006 6:39:13 PM #

Why wait for BBConnect? And wonder about the BlackBerry service? There are plenty of good push email solutions available for Palm OS, from vendors like Intellisync, Visto and Consilient, to name a few.

Don't want to pay the license fees? Funambol just released their open source push email product for carriers and the enterprise
http://www.funambol.com/docs/FunambolV3final.pdf. They claim their core sync technology (previously called Sync4J) has averaged 23,000 downloads a month, making it "the worldâ€™s most popular open source project."

Works great on Palm OS devices. In fact, if I'm not mistaken it works with (literally) a half billion devices that support SyncML.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Why wait and wonder?

hoodoo @ 2/16/2006 8:52:02 PM #

Because my company already has a RIM box on site. I can upgrade my 600 to a 650, and not bother with the RIM unit itself.

Plus, it will be on Palm OS, not Windows :)

RE: Why wait and wonder?

upsidedown @ 2/17/2006 9:28:47 AM #

Easy. My company mandates BB. If i can get BB Connect I will hopefully have new device options that will work seamlessly with our approved system.

RE: Why wait and wonder?

cervezas @ 2/17/2006 10:02:02 AM #

Thanks, yeah, I realize that companies that already have BB boxes deployed will welcome support of new devices.

My question was this: is there really a good reason to deploy BB servers now when there are good (and open source) solutions that don't lock you in to BB devices?

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Why wait and wonder?

rsc1000 @ 2/17/2006 10:37:53 AM #

I dig open source and use a lot of open source software myself - but for IT @ most companies it probably makes sense from a support perspective to go with BB. Most companies will pay the $$$ just to have the security of using a 'standard' solution; BB is the standard in this space at the moment. Visto, etc are not getting anywhere yet, but MS will of course with the new exchange push feature - the biggest threat to BB dominance.

RE: Why wait and wonder?

ocspub @ 2/17/2006 2:48:48 PM #

> They claim their core sync technology (previously called Sync4J)
> has averaged 23,000 downloads a month, making it
> "the worldâ€™s most popular open source project."

23,000 downloads a month?? They must not have heard of projects such as, uh, Mozilla Firefox :)

Maybe their statement wasn't quite as general and broad?

Visit www.tapland.com for Zodiac news and discussion.

RE: Why wait and wonder?

cervezas @ 2/17/2006 3:38:21 PM #

They must not have heard of projects such as, uh, Mozilla Firefox :)

Probably not. They've been pretty busy since the VC money started pouring in. :-P

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

BB web client

Marshall Flinkman @ 2/16/2006 9:17:46 PM #

Will it support this? (i.e. what individual Blackberry users, rather than corporations with in-house servers, use)

So far, I haven't seen any mention one way or the other.

RE: BB web client

just_little_me @ 2/19/2006 4:03:11 PM #

It's BES only - no BIS support in this version from what I've seen.

JLM.

No need for BWC

nrosser @ 2/19/2006 5:26:36 PM #

Blackberry Connect is just intended to allow those companies who have purchased the BES to connect other devices to that BES.

BBC and BWC are irrelevant to one another. BWC is just intended for an individual user, as you stated - there are TONS of those same type solutions available for Treos and such, out there.

Why isn't Microsoft's Direct Push email on Palm devices yet?

The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/20/2006 2:10:54 AM #

Let's see:

Palm is an ActiveSync licensee.

ActiveSync licensees can add Direct Push if they choose.

What is Palm waiting for? Couldn't this have been added to the Treo 650 by now?

3 years after PalmSource announced they were planning to add Blackberry support we still have bupkis. http://www.palmsource.com/press/2003/050603_RIM.html
Will Direct Push be the same story? Why?

TVoR

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