RIM brings SharePoint access to BlackBerry users

RIM has added Microsoft SharePoint connectivity for its BlackBerry smartphones, enabling customers to collaborate with colleagues via documents and other data sources published on a corporate SharePoint site.

Available immediately, the BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint puts essential business resources and document management tools into the hands of mobile professionals in a secure, manageable way, according to RIM.

The client application integrates with core BlackBerry features, including email, calendar, browser and search, and lets users check-out and check-in Office documents from the SharePoint Server.

Office documents can be edited locally using Documents To Go, which is pre-installed on many BlackBerry handsets.

Users can also access and update blogs, wikis and lists from their BlackBerry, and search for content across multiple SharePoint sites, if necessary.

"Our enterprise and government customers asked us to bring a highly refined mobile experience to SharePoint, and we are delivering that today with the BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint," said RIM vice president for enterprise product management Alan Panezic.

The new support builds on the capabilities of RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which sits behind the corporate firewall, and works with SharePoint Server 2007 or 2010.

Customers need BES 5.0 and above, plus a dedicated BlackBerry Social Networking Application Proxy Server, according to RIM.

Meanwhile, the BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint supports any smartphone with BlackBerry OS 5 or above.