Palm, Inc. and Research In Motion (RIM) today announced that they are working together to bring BlackBerry Connect to the Palm Treo 650 smartphone. The companies expect the solution to be available in the United States and internationally starting in early calendar 2006.

Through RIM's BlackBerry Connect licensing program, Palm will enable its Treo 650 and future Palm OS based Treo smartphones with secure, push-based wireless email via BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The solution will enable the following:

-- push-based email using BlackBerry Connect with Palm's
VersaMail email client;

-- support for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino;

-- wireless calendar synchronization;

-- remote address lookup of corporate email directory;

-- convenient email-attachment viewing;

-- Triple DES encryption; and

-- IT policy enforcement and commands (such as remotely disabling
or wiping email and PIM data from a device in the event it is
lost or stolen).

With carrier activation, the Treo 650 combines a compact, full-featured mobile phone with email, an organizer, messaging and web access, allowing users to organize and simplify their business and personal lives all in one place. The Treo 650 offers integrated Bluetooth wireless technology, a high-resolution screen, multimedia capabilities, a removable battery, non-volatile memory and a backlit QWERTY keyboard.

BlackBerry Connect will be available for new and existing Treo 650 users through select carriers. Pricing and distribution details will be provided at a later date.

The Treo 650 with BlackBerry Connect is being demonstrated this week at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2005 in Orlando, Fla.

Source: Palm