BES 5.0 Premium Service Pack 3 Coming in March/April?

RIM has been pretty consistent in releasing BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) updates around what used to be the WES conference but is now the BlackBerry World Conference. We just heard from one of our sources that RIM is scheduled to release their BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 Service Pack 3 around March/April which is just before BlackBerry World from May 3-5th. It all depends on when RIM gets the GOLD/RTM status for the service pack which is scheduled for March. RIM first releases a RTM version. This is tested, distributed to partners and if end of 3 weeks everything works as expected, it goes into Gold. The Gold can be an exact copy of RTM, if there is no bugs found at RTM release via testing. The official release is set to be 3 weeks after that.

As mentioned by Al @CIO back in October of 2010 this BES v5.0 SP3 is supposed to bring:

• BES admins can choose to make smartphone software updates optional for their users
• The BlackBerry MDS Integration Service is now end-of-life. The BES 5.0.3 setup application removes the MDS Integration Service when you upgrade a BES
• End of support for Microsoft SQL Server 2000
• Support for more IM servers, including Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Lync Server 2010
• Support for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 virtualization platform
• New IT Policies
• Users have the option to rollback optional software updates
• The default settings for media file downloads have changed to allow users to download larger amounts of content using the BlackBerry Browser or through an HTTP connection using BlackBerry MDS Connection Service
• When a meeting organizer receives a meeting confirmation email message via BlackBerry, or a request for information email message, the email message includes any comments that the meeting participant added
• support for Microsoft Office 2010 file attachments

I am working on getting a copy of the updated change docs but for now this is what we have. This version is also rumored (I have confirmed this) to bring some more features in the form of what RIM calls BlackBerry Balance to separate work and personal functions/data on a BlackBerry. It will also bring support for their upcoming SharePoint client and IT Policies for the Amazon MP3 app. There is also a new IT Policy for Wireless Security Updates whatever those are…