Palm and RIM to Release Blackberry Connect for Treo 650 in Early 2006

Posted on October 17th, 2005 by adimiron

Palm announced today that they are working with Research in Motion (makers of the popular Blackberry handhelds and push-email solution) to bring RIM’s Blackberry Connect solution to the Treo 650 handheld in early 2006. The solution will allow Treo 650 smartphones to receive push-email from an enterprise server with DES-grade encryption for security. The solution will be compatible with Microsoft’s Exchange server as well as IBM’s Lotus Domino server.

This announcement follows up an initial announcement in mid-2004 when the companies originally announced their plans to build out a solution for the Palm platform. This lag has enabled Good Technologies to strategically market their push-email solution to those who were not willing to wait for RIM to deliver Blackberry Connect for the Palm OS.

This could be a potentially huge win for Palm, as Blackberry handhelds have proliferated among business users, even earning the moniker “Crackberry” to their greatest fans. If Palm can position the Treo 650 as a Blackberry alternative for push-email with a greater featureset and more expandability, they could have a great window into the pocketbooks of CIOs everywhere.

Of course, this development also begs the question of whether the new solution will be available for the Windows Mobile Treo 700w upon its release next year, or whether it will only be used on Treo smartphones running the Palm OS, essentially as a competing model to the Treo 700w. Perhaps customization of the Blackberry Connect solution will help drive PalmOS-based sales of a Treo 700p.

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14 Responses to “Palm and RIM to Release Blackberry Connect for Treo 650 in Early 2006”

D. Neal Leeper, on October 17th, 2005 at 2:23 pm Said:

Excellent idea! As a business user, this would make the Palm 650 complete.
peter engel, on October 19th, 2005 at 12:35 am Said:

will the push email be available for those without the enterprise system while their computers are running?
Steven, on October 19th, 2005 at 1:45 am Said:

Does this mean it will be a software update we can install (eg. on our current Verizon Wireless Treo 650) ????
mcmc, on October 19th, 2005 at 8:34 am Said:

Any idea if this will be available for the Treo 600??
Envy, on October 19th, 2005 at 2:05 pm Said:

Does anyone now if there is any beta of the software? I would be interested.
Sylvia Carlock, on October 19th, 2005 at 3:08 pm Said:

I would love to see a Treo with RIM and walkie talkie capabilities.
mrcpu1, on October 19th, 2005 at 4:14 pm Said:

Hopefully not too little too late, they should have done this 2 years ago, companies like mine would not have already invested in the RIM devices directly which are inferior to a smart phone in general.
600er, on October 19th, 2005 at 4:43 pm Said:

What about all us still using the Treo 600. It seems you forgaot about us!
Rick Slan, on October 19th, 2005 at 5:42 pm Said:

Way cool.. Good SUX
Tjay, on October 20th, 2005 at 1:35 am Said:

Have we not heard “It’s right around the corner” before????? …..2003…….2004…..2005…….oh 2006…..Just frustrated with “Here are the SECRET photos”
Sean Vedell, on October 20th, 2005 at 10:45 pm Said:

Don’t worry 600 users. By the time this actually gets to market you’ll probably be eligible for an upgrade. And upgrade you should because you can be Palm won’t offer it’s new services on anything but the 650 and up. If you haven’t noticed Palm and all Treo carriers are doing there best to pretend the 600 doesn’t exist anymore. Having upgraded to the 650 I can’t blame them. I don’t want to remember my 600 now either!
Scott Eagleson, on October 27th, 2005 at 10:18 pm Said:

Is anyone else having problems using Sprints Biz Connect on thier Treo 650. I have spent tens of hours with Sprint techy’s trying to work this out to no avail. I can not get or send e-mail. And now that the Sprint software is on my phone I cannot get the originalPalm Versamail to work. All Sprint says is “it sounds like a Palm problem” and all Palm says is that it is “obviously a software (Sprint) issue”. I’m pissed off and fed up. Any thoughts.
Danny, on October 31st, 2005 at 4:45 pm Said:

Excellent concept. As a business user, this would maximize my use of the TRE-650. Now if only Sprint will
jump on this capability and offer it to it’s customers as
soon as possible.
Jim, on November 9th, 2005 at 9:10 pm Said:

(The email problems on the treo guy) I had problems too when I got my treo and had a sprint technician go into the advanced settings in the communication prefs. Most tech support don’t know how to do it so ask for a level2 tech.