Jan/Feb 2004

The Blackberry mobile email device is looking more and more like a true mobile computing platform. Last year Research in Motion, the company behind it, launched a version of the hardware with a full colour screen, giving it more of the visual appeal of Palm and Pocket PC devices. Now LAN 2 LAN, a networking specialist, claims to have become the first UK provider to offer a fully functional, wireless enterprise application service for the device.

This capability extends the Blackberry into the realms of corporate computing, allowing users to tap into a wide range of computer applications such as customer databases, word processing tools, spreadsheets and presentation programs.

The company says these applications can also be linked with barcode scanning and printing functions - offering what it reckons is a complete solution for the mobile workforce.

RIM has progressively added a variety of features to extend the appeal of the Blackberry. Last year for instance it announced that the platform was supported by the MetaMessage Gateway disaster recovery system from Onset Technology, which in essence keeps Blackberry users connected if the user's corporate computing platform is compromised by some form of disaster.

 

LAN 2 LAN works with a variety of leading mobile solution specialists including Flowfinity, for whom it is the first EMEA integrator, and provides the wireless technology to support MetaMessage and Sonic Admin applications.

• The new colour Blackberry was added to the Vodafone product range at the end of last year, and is priced competitively at just £199. The 7230 colour model is a tri-band device, allowing seamless roaming in Europe and the United States.