Research in Motion (Rim) and PalmSource have joined
forces and announced that RIM’s BlackBerry Connect will be
available to Palm handheld and smartphone customers.
Through Rim’s BlackBerry Connect licensing program, Palm OS
licensees will be offered Rim’s software solutions, providing
enterprise customers with security, e-mail and corporate data
connectivity.
The BlackBerry Enterprise Server supports Microsoft’s Exchange
server and IBM’s Lotus Domino server environments.
Warren Chaisatien, senior telecom analyst at IDC said that the
enterprise end-user community will benefit because Rim will handle
the back-end and security for e-mail while allowing customers the
flexibility of not choosing its front end.
"Before they struck this agreement, they wanted to be very
careful…the delicate part of this kind of alliance is to make sure
you actually achieve a win-win situation for both parties rather
than cannibalising one another at the end of the day," he said.
For Rim, the deal represents its second alliance in three
months.
In March, it announced a partnership with London-based software
company Symbian making its BlackBerry e-mail system solution
available on handsets using the Symbian operating system.
The deal also permitted cellular subscribers to receive and send
corporate data on Symbian phones wirelessly .
PalmSource also unveiled its Business Solutions Program which,
it said, will allow enterprise developers to submit their
applications for a series of tests that once passed will validate
the application as "enterprise-ready".
The product offers developers targeted market support such as
high visibility and networking opportunities with PalmSource
strategic partners, wireless service providers and independent
software suppliers.