WATERLOO, Ontario—Research In Motion Ltd. unveiled its push into the wireless local area network space with the launch of its BlackBerry WLAN Solution. The service includes a WLAN Solution platform and a Wi-Fi enabled handset, the BlackBerry 7270.
The company’s WLAN offering is aimed at enterprise campuses with existing WLAN and IP-PBX infrastructure, a market the company estimates includes up to 50 million workers in the United States alone. RIM said the service offers voice and wireless access to e-mail, browser and organizer applications and is targeted at enterprise sectors with employees whose jobs require on-campus mobility such as healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, education, retail and distribution.
Both the WLAN solution and Wi-Fi enabled handset are newly available but long-awaited. A prototype of the 7270 was announced in late 2004, with availability then projected in early 2005. The WLAN-enabled BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the result of RIM’s previously announced collaborations with Nortel Networks Ltd. and 3Com Corp., both announced a year ago.
“There is now a critical mass of major PBX vendors that support SIP end-points. With the addition of Cisco CM 5.0 support, the BlackBerry 7270 and WLAN solution are now supported by all major PBX equipment makers including Cisco, Avaya and Nortel. So, while the BlackBerry WLAN solution has been in-market for some time, our recent relationships with SIP-capable PBX equipment vendors have given us a true end-to-end platform that addresses the needs of enterprise customers,” said Kevin Oerton, RIM’s director of product management for Wi-Fi and VoIP.
The BlackBerry 7270 handset connects through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to support push-based e-mail, instant messaging, organizer, Internet and intranet applications and enables users to make and receive wireless VoIP calls through enterprise phone systems using the Session Initiation Protocol standard.
The announcement comes on the heels of last week’s settlement in the patent infringement lawsuit between RIM and NTP Inc., in which RIM agreed to pay NTP $612.5 million. The settlement has led analysts and observers to look beyond the lawsuit to RIM’s long-term viability in a market increasingly crowded with function-rich devices and advanced services.
