BlackBerry to Offer Mac Support
Macworld 2006 Conference & Expo, Moscone Center
Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) and Information Appliance
Associates (IAA) today announced a licensing agreement whereby RIM will offer
'PocketMac(R) for BlackBerry(R)' to Mac users, free of charge. PocketMac for
BlackBerry is a desktop application that enables Mac users to synchronize data
between their BlackBerry devices and Macintosh applications including core OS X
version 10.4 "Tiger" applications and Microsoft Entourage.
"The worldwide popularity of Mac OS X is driving the creation of many exciting
new products and significant growth in the Apple development community," said
Ron Okamoto, Apple's Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations. "We're
thrilled that IAA and RIM have collaborated to better support mobile Mac users
with easy-to-use BlackBerry synchronization."
"PocketMac for BlackBerry is easy to install and allows users to synchronize
email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes with popular Mac applications," said
Terence Goggin, CTO of Information Appliance Associates. "We are pleased to
work with RIM to provide this robust solution to Apple's mobile customers."
"This licensing agreement will help expand the reach of BlackBerry to another
important market segment," said Mark Guibert, Vice President, Corporate
Marketing at Research In Motion. "There is significant interest in BlackBerry
from Mac users and we look forward to delivering PocketMac for BlackBerry to
customers around the world."
RIM has licensed the complete version of PocketMac for BlackBerry from IAA and
the companies plan ongoing product development collaboration. PocketMac for
BlackBerry synchronizes the email, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes of
Microsoft Entourage, OS X's Address Book and iCal, Now Contact and Now
Up-to-Date, DayLite, and Stickies, among other applications. This
easy-to-access solution for Macintosh synchronization is expected to be
available as a free download at www.blackberry.com beginning in February.
Further details of the licensing agreement were not disclosed.