Purchasers of Nokia’s latest Eseries devices may be a bit distressed to learn that BlackBerry Connect will no longer be updated for Nokia’s S60 devices, effective immediately. Just after a recent update was issued for the latest E90 firmware Nokia made the announcement and was hardly indirect with its reasoning for the move. Nokia’s Simon Ainslie had this to say:
RIM are a competitor and have done a reasonable job in a space that is traditionally ours, so it’s no great surprise that we see this as an opportunity to give consumers a proper choice on what email solution they want.
Perhaps the most confusing part of this move is the simple fact that Nokia’s OEM email support is, well, shoddy at best. Unreliable, poorly-executed and horrible are more descriptive terms that have been tossed around from time to time. The integrated POP / IMAP support is just north of unusable. Nokia’s Mail for Exchange client historically hasn’t been much better, though the most recent client addresses many issues of the past. Mail for Exchange however, as the name might dictate, only supports Exchange email. This might be fine if you use your device strictly for work (and your company uses Exchange) but in the day and age of “convergence”, most people like to have access to personal email as well. Nokia’s recent “Nokia Email” beta does show signs of life, though slight. All this aside, if your company uses RIM’s email system and you had plans to snag an E71 instead of a BlackBerry… Think again.
