Smart subscribers can now enjoy BlackBerry technology

More postpaid mobile phone subscribers of Smart Communications can now enjoy BlackBerry technology using Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets.

Smart Communications, along with Research In Motion (RIM), announced recently the availability of BlackBerry Connect for new and existing users of the Nokia 9500 Communicator, Nokia 9300 smartphone and Sony Ericsson P910i in the Philippines.

BlackBerry Connect is available to Smart Gold, Infinity and Addict Mobile subscribers and supports both BlackBerry Internet Service and BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The introduction of BlackBerry Connect significantly expands Smart’s portfolio of BlackBerry products which currently includes the BlackBerry 7100G, BlackBerry 7290, BlackBerry 7230, BlackBerry 7730 and BlackBerry 6720.

With BlackBerry Connect, customers can enjoy the advantages of BlackBerry services with support for features such as push-based wireless e-mail, wireless e-mail synchronization and attachment viewing on the Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices. Wireless calendar synchronization, remote address lookup, Triple DES encryption, IT commands and policy enforcement are additional features supported with BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

"We are very pleased to be working with Smart to offer BlackBerry Connect in the Philippines," said Norm Lo, vice president for Asia Pacific at Research In Motion. "BlackBerry Connect enables power wireless e-mail features for mobile users while also allowing IT departments to maintain the security, manageability and reliability of the BlackBerry architecture."

Smart pesident and CEO Napoleon Nazareno said the extension of the BlackBerry service to a wider range of handsets gives mobile phone users more choice.

"We are proud to be RIM’s partner in making BlackBerry services available to more of our businessmen and professionals who need a wireless extension of their existing work and personal e-mail accounts. Smart’s goal is to make wireless connectivity work for more people," he said.

BlackBerry has become the most widely accepted wireless e-mail solution on the go because of its proven reliability and convenience. Users do not have to retrieve or "pull" e-mail from an account since BlackBerry automatically "pushes" e-mail messages to handsets.

For corporate customers, BlackBerry Enterprise Server software tightly integrates with Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino or Novell Groupwise to enable secure, push-based, wireless access to email and calendar.

For individuals and smaller businesses, BlackBerry Internet Service allows users to access multiple personal and/or corporate e-mail accounts (including many popular ISP e-mail accounts as well as Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access and IBM Lotus Domino iNotes accounts) from a single device.

Smart first introduced BlackBerry services in the Philippines in May 2003.