RIM Launches Enterprise Server Express For SMBs

The BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) has announced the launch of its new hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) Express service for small and medium business customers in India. The service will help users to sync their BlackBerry with Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint 2010, and Lync 2010 in a pay-per-user model.

The company has licensed out the offering to Global Outlook, a secure cloud-based business communication services provider, saying it as an exclusive alliance.

With this launch, RIM targets to extend its offerings to the growing SME market of 30 million in India. The service is specifically designed for SME customers, many of whom do not have an IT head or CIO in their organizations. "With this solution, there is no need to build an in-house management expertise and it also assures ease of billing and predictable costs," says Sunil Lalvani, Director (Enterprise Sales), RIM. (See Sunil Lalvani: Director - Enterprise Sales, Research In Motion.)

Express Server will be available to the SMEs at a price of INR 320-335 (US $5.75-$6.02) per user. Global Outlook says that it has already signed-up 10,000 customers for the service and aims to take up the customer list to 30,000 by this year end.

The BES Express can run on the same physical or virtual server as the Microsoft Corp. mail server or on its own server. It has over 90 IT controls and policies, including remote-wipe abilities for a smartphone. The service was first launched in the US market in 2010.

- Jatinder Singh, Principal Correspondent, Light Reading India