Google tightens integration between Google Apps and BlackBerries

By Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 25 November 2009 02:16

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Google has upgraded its Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry that provides integration between Gmail, Google Apps' Calendar and Address book and BlackBerry handhelds.

The initial version, announced in May and released in August worked only with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and had a limit of one Google Apps domain and 250 users per server.

The new version increases the number of supportable users to 500 per server and enables a single BlackBerry Enterprise Server to support multiple Google App domains - Google suggests this will reduce the costs of providing services by its hosting partners. It also works with BlackBerry Professional Software - an application that provides Blackberry handheld support on existing servers running Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino. BlackBerry Professional Software can support up to 30 BlackBerry handhelds.

An announcement of the new version (Google Apps Connector for BES version 1.5) suggested that further enhancements were in the pipeline, along with plans to "make it easier for you to manage mobile devices of all types with Google Apps."

With the connector, messages sent to Gmail are pushed to the BlackBerry, and edits/deletes made either on Gmail or the BlackBerry are replicated on the other, folders and labels are synchronised. The Google Calendar schedule can be viewed with the native BlackBerry application and there is one-way synchronisation from Google Calendar to BlackBerry (Google said in August that it was working on two way synchronisation).

This article first appeared in ExchangeDaily, iTWire's daily newsletter for telecommunications professionals. Register here for your free trial.