BlackBerry support returning to Nokia devices courtesy of RIM

By on Jan 20, 2009 at 9:17 AM
Software January 20, 2009

Back in July, Nokia announced that it would be discontinuing development and support for its BlackBerry Connect solution. For those who aren’t familiar with the application, or who can’t decipher its purpose from its straight forward moniker, it essentially allowed S60 handsets to communicate with BlackBerry servers. While it only offered basic functionality such as email, BlackBerry Connect was the only option for S60 fans whose companies made use of BES. The announcement that the app and service had been discontinued left a bad taste in many mouths as users wondered how Nokia could bail on BlackBerry Connect when its native email and PIM options were so lacking. Worry not however, as RIM is gearing up to grab the reins and steer the ship in a new direction. According to head of Nokia Messaging Tom Furlong, RIM is working on its own solution that will become available soon. Furlong seems to welcome RIM’s offering, a stark contrast from Nokia’s competitive position back when it initially dropped BlackBerry Connect in July. Apparently as long as RIM is doing the grunt work, Nokia is happy to welcome BES support on its Symbian handsets. Whatever the case may be, S60 users can look forward to a refreshed BlackBerry connectivity option, courtesy of RIM, in the near future. Wouldn’t it be sweet if RIM decided to go the BlackBerry Application Suite route on S60?

[Via Symbian-Guru]

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10 Comments

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  • WirelessGeek

    Heck, I’d be glad to see RIM put BlackBerry Application Suite on something, anything. So far it has been all talk for this Suite. BlackBerry on my E71 would rock though.

  • NYC567user

    But Blackberry Connect…and any flavor of it on the Nokia phone models has crawled as soon as you went past 300 messages..BBC 4.x definitely did not hold its own against a real blackberry…it also drained your battery….it was like running VMWARE on a 386 cpu…wondering if they are going to re-design from ground up.

  • SayYaToDaUPEh?

    Any word on BIS support?

  • Canis_Major

    With the quality (lack thereof) of the recent Blackberry launches, this will be good news for Nokia, and a great door into the NA market. Heck, they lost an E71 sale from at least me because of the lack of BBC

  • Blaxx

    Why are you guys the only ones mentioning that the door is WIDE OPEN for Blackberry Application Suite on Symbian? Let’s hope this is the case

  • jazzyl

    Finally Nokia has found their sense? RIM RULS. HjANDSDOWN

  • KYLE

    im a moron and i still dont get it…i have an E71…WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??

  • NPS

    Sounds like the E71 had problems getting into purely BES customers. My e61i was the last Nokia device I had. I still use it for BES but moved to a T-Mobile G1 for a personal device. I will have to look long and hard at Nokia’s BB support. Stupid of Nokia to drop it, good if they can bring it back integrated well.

    KYLE: If your company uses Blackberry Enterprise Server this means you can have email connectivity. Some companies do NOT support the other methods to get Exchange to work with the E71, therefore Nokia if anything was getting customers who could work with Exchange on the E61i (via Blackberry) but could NOT upgrade to the E71 (as their company would not support ActiveSync or similar). Also alot of Blackberry users have flat rate international roaming so using your phone out of country had a predictable monthly flat fee. The Exchange support on the E71 via ActiveSync does NOT allow the carrier to offer a flat rate email service so roaming an E71 can be VERY expensive. Hence why a lot of E61i users have NOT upgraded to the E71

  • Pea Tear Griffin

    They’d have a winner with 3 words, B B M

  • Michael

    Any update on this?

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