Research In Motion (RIM) yesterday announced a new service for business and government organisations that extends Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry smartphones, allowing customers to manage BlackBerry functions in the cloud.
RIM says the service, BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365, is available at no additional charge to current medium-sized or enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online. It works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans.
Alan Panezic, VP of enterprise product management and marketing at RIM, says the new cloud-based option allows customers to support mobility across their organisations, and manage and secure their BlackBerry deployments.
Microsoft Office 365 is the company's cloud productivity service that brings together Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online in a single cloud service.
Julia White, senior director of Microsoft's Exchange Product Management Group, says the Microsoft-RIM partnership facilitates the extension of the user experience across the PC, browser and phone. “The availability of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services is great news for Office 365 and BlackBerry customers who want to get the maximum benefit from these two business collaboration services.”
Key features of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services include:
* Wireless synchronisation with Microsoft Exchange Online e-mail, calendar and organiser data from a BlackBerry smartphone.
* BlackBerry Balance technology, which presents a unified view of work and personal content on a BlackBerry smartphone.
* An intuitive Web-based console for IT administrators to provision, manage and secure BlackBerry smartphones from anywhere.
* Online access to employee self-service smartphone security functions.
Managed service providers, systems integrators, carriers, resellers and other partners can also use the cloud service to manage BlackBerry deployments on behalf of their customers.
The service is available as of yesterday in over 50 countries. Customers can go to www.blackberry.com/cloudservices to get started.
Share
