Palm, Inc. and Research In Motion (RIM) announced that they are working together to bring BlackBerry® Connect™ to the Palm® Treo™ 650 Smartphone. The companies expect the solution to be available in the United States and internationally starting in early calendar 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).
The Palm Treo 650 smartphone makes it easier for mobile users to stay connected. With carrier activation, the Treo 650 combines a compact, full-featured mobile phone with email, an organizer, messaging and web access, allowing users to organize and simplify their business and personal lives all in one place. The Treo 650 offers integrated Bluetooth® wireless technology, a high-resolution screen, multimedia capabilities, a removable battery, non-volatile memory and a backlit QWERTY keyboard.
“Treo 650 has earned accolades as the best fully featured smartphone available, and we’re thrilled to make it even better by answering customer requests and offering RIM’s BlackBerry email solution for businesses,” said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. “Our news today demonstrates Palm’s promise to offer flexible mobile-computing solutions with world-class, enterprise-strength partners, delivering what we’re convinced is the best email experience to the broadest set of customers – all on Treo smartphones.”
“The BlackBerry architecture and infrastructure are recognized around the world as secure, manageable, reliable and scalable, and we are extremely pleased to broaden the choice of BlackBerry-enabled handsets with the Treo 650,” said Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-CEO at RIM. “We have already seen significant customer interest in this powerful combination, and we look forward to building on our relationship with Palm.”
BlackBerry Connect will be available for new and existing Treo 650 users through select carriers. Pricing and distribution details will be provided at a later date.
The Treo 650 with BlackBerry Connect is being demonstrated this week at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2005 in Orlando, Fla. at Palm’s and RIM’s booths – No. 417 and No. 515 respectively.
