[ScOObydoo]

Canada’s Research In Motion used the Symbian Expo this week to get across the message that it wants to see the BlackBerry wireless data service deployed on OSes and devices other than its well-known pager.

In a conference
session called "Flexibility for the Wireless Enterprise," RIM director Susan Payne put up a slide showing a number of Symbian-powered devices, including the Sony Ericsson P900 line and Nokia’s Series 80 products, which are already available on its BlackBerry Connect service, which was introduced in March 2003. The licensing program allows mobile device manufacturers to equip their handsets with the integrated ability to connect to BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

"If you came to see this presentation two years ago, the only device you could have seen was a BlackBerry device," Payne admitted, adding that the program arose out of RIM research that revealed key barriers to the adoption of wireless in the enterprise. "There was no confidence (enterprise customers) would make the right choice of device."

RIM has 33,000 corporate customers on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Payne said, and connections with more than 70 carriers worldwide. The BlackBerry Connect program is part of a strategy at RIM to not only broaden the market for its services beyond its own hardware -- as Palm did when it split off its OS and device business -- but to offer services besides e-mail.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?t...anner=Wireless