WATERLOO, Ontario-BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. and its partners made a string of announcements in conjunction with the Wireless Enterprise Symposium in New Orleans, including news that Palm OS licensees will be able to offer BlackBerry-style corporate access.
RIM’s deal with PalmSource, the operating system subsidiary of Palm Inc., follows similar deals with Nokia Corp., Symbian and Microsoft Corp. Under RIM’s new BlackBerry Connect licensing program, platform companies like PalmSource can offer their licensees RIM’s BlackBerry software. Under the PalmSource deal, a company building devices using the Palm OS now has the option to include BlackBerry software in the device, thereby giving users access to RIM’s enterprise servers.
“Together with PalmSource, we will enable carriers and customers to leverage their existing investments and deliver the BlackBerry wireless experience to new users of Palm Powered wireless devices,” said Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s president and co-chief executive officer.
Separately, RIM and wireless enterprise company JP Mobile said they will work together to allow BlackBerry users to access applications using RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server and JP Mobile’s SureWave Enterprise Server technologies.
Wireless application and platform company Flowfinity Wireless announced several new partnerships. Under its new deal with Infinite Peripherals, the company will offer printing and card scanning capabilities to BlackBerry users. Under Flowfinity’s deal with Ericom Software, the company will provide software tools and technology for extending legacy applications to BlackBerry devices.
And finally, Sonic Mobility announced its Sonicadmin product will now allow users to access, monitor and configure their BlackBerry Enterprise Server wirelessly using BlackBerry handhelds.
