RIM partners with AOL to bring AOL Mail, AIM and ICQ to the Blackberry
AOL’s email and instant messaging applications, AIM and ICQ, are to be embedded in Blackberry smartphones.
While all three of the AOL features will only be available in the US initially, they are to be expanded to other markets shortly.
RIM and AOL have developed native BlackBerry applications for both of the IM clients to ensure they work effectively on the Canadian-made handsets.
AOL Mail for BlackBerry is built on the “push e-mail” architecture that RIM’s smartphones are already equipped with.
Once installed on a BlackBerry device, AOL Mail will offer the same features as the desktop version, synchronizing data and content with the users’ online account.
For those with BlackBerry OS 4.5 or later, emails can be viewed in HTML format and Microsoft Office attachments downloaded.
Kevin Conroy, executive vice president at AOL, said he was thrilled to be collaborating with RIM.
“By integrating our AOL Mail, AIM and ICQ services with the BlackBerry platform, users will have an exceptional mobile communications experience anytime, anywhere,” he said.
Mark Guibert, vice president, corporate marketing at Research In Motion, said the BlackBerry platform offered unparalleled email and messaging capabilities for mobile customers.
“We are very pleased to be working with AOL to enable a rich mobile experience on BlackBerry smartphones for the tens of millions of people who use AOL Mail, AIM and ICQ.”
BlackBerry users can download both AIM and ICQ from the BlackBerry official website.
Meanwhile, Nokia is looking at RIM’s business appeal by expanding the number of devices automatically capable of accessing Microsoft corporate e-mail.
The Finnish company has said it will embed Microsoft Exchange Activesync on all Nokia phones that use the S60 Symbian operating system.
This will mean 43 different models of Nokia phones will have easy access to Microsoft corporate email.
Nokia will also add the Microsoft Exchange support to all new N-Series and E-Series phones that hit the market in the future.
Prior to this announcement Nokia offered Microsoft email support as a download for only a handful of devices.
But the feature wasn’t well publicized, and it was somewhat difficult to download.
The enhancement is significant, especially in the US, where Nokia has not made inroads in a smartphone market dominated by BlackBerry devices.
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