Organizations with Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) can now offer their users a number of new corporate instant messaging (IM) features, while at the same time maintaining tighter control over such messaging, thanks to RIM's just-announced support for Microsoft's Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007.
Enterprises that employ RIM's BlackBerry Messenger IM client now have access to new messaging and presence/status features, as well as new functionality enabled by more complex integration between the IM app and core BlackBerry applications, like the phone, browser, address book and calendar, according to RIM.
New features available to enterprises in BlackBerry Messenger include the ability to create customized status notifications and enable auto-presence detection, which can determine the status of other corporate users based on their activity on a desk phone, corporate computer or events posted within their Microsoft Outlook calendars, among other functionality.
A handful of IT-specific features for BES administrators are also available under the new OCS 2007 support, including the ability to control access to BlackBerry Messenger by specific individuals or groups of people. Admins can also control specific functionality within the application. For example, the ability to save conversation histories can be turned on and off.
The OCS 2007 support won't likely send enterprise BlackBerry administrators running to their BES computers to upgrade; however, it may serve as motivation for corporations to focus on BlackBerry Messenger as a corporate IM solution.
RIM also recently announced new IM support for consumers, including expanded support for AIM and ICQ, at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment event in San Francisco.
In order to take advantage of the new features and functionality, organizations must be running BES 4.1.6 or higher; users' handhelds must have device operating system 4.1 or higher; and a new BlackBerry Messenger client built for use with OCS 2007 must be downloaded.
Additional information on the announcement can be found on RIM's site.
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