AT&T Announces Blackberry Professional Software for Small Business

Easy-to-Use Solution Offers Businesses Collaboration, Security and Control Of BlackBerry Smartphones.
Small business owners and office managers can now get big-business advantages in a BlackBerry® solution.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today the availability of BlackBerry® Professional Software for AT&T’s small business customers, which provides a wireless communications and collaboration solution with advanced security features designed specifically for small and midsize companies.

BlackBerry Professional Software is a logical and intuitive wireless communications and collaboration solution that provides small business-focused features, security performance and support options in an easy-to-use solution, supporting up to 30 wireless users. It enables wireless access to e-mail, calendar, contacts, business data and Internet access while helping owners and office managers focus on running their business. This new solution helps them to respond quickly to their customers and provides employees with the ability to accomplish more each day by using their BlackBerry smartphones from AT&T.

“BlackBerry Professional Software will allow our small business customers to more easily afford and implement BlackBerry service so that they have many of the controls and security features and the productivity benefits of staying connected that large business customers enjoy,” said Michael Woodward, AT&T vice president, Business Voice/Data and Wireless Products. AT&T is the world’s largest BlackBerry service provider.

BlackBerry Professional Software provides a simplified installation process and the full suite of advanced security features and IT policies that come with the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server software, such as sophisticated end-to-end encryption to protect communications and information — but with simplified administration. With pre-defined IT policies, it is also easy to control content protection strength from content on the handset, owner-information settings, password use, password complexity, timeouts and more. A lost or stolen smartphone can be locked down, and proprietary business information can be erased immediately.

BlackBerry Professional Software also provides control over the company’s BlackBerry smartphones, allowing the owner or office manager to limit certain features on an employee’s smartphone, and the solution enables data to be backed up wirelessly. Changes to control settings can occur in seconds as IT policies are “pushed” to the smartphone over the air.

BlackBerry Professional Software is designed to be logical, intuitive and straightforward, so a small business owner or office manager can install it easily on an existing e-mail server (IBM® Lotus® Domino®, Microsoft Windows Small Business Server or Microsoft® Exchange). A pre-install assistant streamlines the simple installation process, and configuration is automatic. Controlling security and device-management functions, such as the examples cited above, is quickly and easily accomplished through wizards and quick links.

If a small business grows beyond 30 users, the BlackBerry Professional Software solution can be upgraded to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and the BlackBerry Professional Software Client Access Licenses (CALs) can be used with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

AT&T’s small business customers can rely on the BlackBerry Professional Software to grow with their business at home. They can also rely on AT&T’s industry-best wireless international footprint to keep them connected on their BlackBerry smartphones, with voice calling in more than 200 countries and wireless e-mail and Internet access in more than 145 countries.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
The BlackBerry Professional Software package that supports five wireless users out of the box is priced at $499, with a 10-user version priced at $849. These packages include the server software along with CALs. Additional CALs can be purchased individually, in five-packs and in 10-packs to grow the deployment as the small business grows. Special introductory promotional pricing for software and CALs, as well as a large portfolio of BlackBerry smartphones, is available through AT&T’s small business account representatives or the Key Contact Center at 866-768-8406.

BlackBerry small business customers also can take advantage of AT&T’s new BusinessTalk voice plans, which start at $60 a month for five users and 700 Anytime Minutes and can be expanded for $9.99 a line to accommodate up to 40 users and 20,000 Anytime Minutes. Companies may choose BusinessTalk with either unlimited Mobile to Mobile or Push To Talk features.