Research In Motion announced the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, targeted at the SMB market.

Today, the SMB market generally uses the BlackBerry Internet Solution to enable BlackBerry devices. The BlackBerry Internet Solution provides push email, the ability to gather messages from various other email accounts, and PIM synchronization through connectivity with a desktop and the Desktop Manager application.

The major problem with the BlackBerry Internet Solution is the lack of wireless PIM synchronization. So significant time is wasted finding messages, and ensuring that folders, calendars, and contacts are synchronized. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server addresses this issue by tightly integrating with the back-end messaging system and wirelessly synchronizing data with the devices. Beyond this, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server enables additional security controls and device management capabilities that can reduce administration costs and secure the data these devices contain.

Seamless integration, wireless synchronization, and device management are key features to any mobile messaging solution. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express allows SMBs to gain access to these features at a very low cost. It’s an appropriate offering by RIM, given the number of low-cost, maturing product offerings on the market today.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express includes a fully functional version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server with one client access license. It is free with the purchase of a BlackBerry device. BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express can be scaled to support up to 15 users for an additional cost of $99 per user. It provides an upgrade path to move organizations to the full version once this limit is exceeded.

… Colin Bush