Nortel and 3Com pick BlackBerry
Firms sign up to develop voice support for RIM device
Nortel and 3Com have both signed up to develop SIP-based voice support for Research In Motion's (RIM's) BlackBerry 7270.
Both vendors will support the device's wireless LAN (WLAN) capability to give users access to their voice over IP (VoIP) phone systems via campus WLANs.
"Our relationship with RIM goes a lot further than just WLAN voice calls," said Paul Templeton, vice-president of enterprise solutions EMEA at Nortel. "We will have the Nortel thin client on the device as well. It's early days, and a route to market will take time to establish."
Initially, Nortel will integrate the BlackBerry enterprise platform with its Multimedia Communications Server 5100, while 3Com will integrate its IP PBX and WLAN switch with RIM's server product.
Nick Evans, head of Microsoft and mobility at reseller IT Partnerships, said: "One of the problems for the channel has been that BlackBerry has been so simple to install that operators have cleaned up. Hopefully we'll see more business when it becomes more complicated."