Google just announced Google Apps Connection version 1.5 which lets the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) connect to Google Apps email, calendar, & contacts. They have doubled the supported users per BES to 500 and added support for BlackBerry Professional Software in this release.
The biggest deal I see in this update is that Google has made it possible for one BES server to serve multiple Google Apps domains. This means that BES hosting providers are soon going to be able to offer low cost Google Apps with hosting with PIM sync just like BES. Google Apps Connector is a bit limited (no 2 way calendar sync) but it would probably be cheaper than traditional BES service especially if you already use Google Apps.
Now if only they could find a way to just avoid using BES altogether so we don’t need to have a more expensive data plan…
Check out Google Apps Connector at this link
Overview of features
- Messages sent to your Gmail inbox are pushed to your BlackBerry within 60 seconds.
- Emails read/deleted on your BlackBerry are marked as read/deleted in Gmail, and vice-versa.
- Synchronize BlackBerry folders with labels in Gmail.
- Search for email addresses and phone numbers of other users on your company domain.
- View your Google Calendar schedule on your native BlackBerry application, with one-way synchronization from Google Calendar to your BlackBerry device.
- Contacts in Gmail are automatically synchronized with your BlackBerry address book
purephase Not Registered
Posted: November 24, 2009 at 10:18 PM EST
This is good. I really wish that there was a non-facebook way for companies to sync PINs. We don’t use Exchange, so BES is out. It is so challenging to update all address books when someone gets a new device.