BlackBerry to Offer Mac Support
Macworld 2006 Conference & Expo, San Francisco, CA — Moscone Center, Booth
#2538 — Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) and Information
Appliance Associates (IAA) today announced a licensing agreement whereby
RIM will offer ‘PocketMac for BlackBerry’ 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.