RIM Acquires Ascendent, Launches Servers

The deal gives RIM new tools to tightly connect Blackberry to corporate phone and data services. Along with RIM, Ascendent had established partnerships with Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp., and Microsoft Corp.

Ascendent makes the software to extend features from a traditional Private Branch Exchange (PBX) and Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange (IP-PBX) systems to mobile devices.

Having settled a $612.5 million patent-infringement suit with NTP Inc., just a week ago, Research In Motion on Friday launched the BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server Small Business Edition v4.1 for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino.

The Enterprise Server can link Blackberry devices with instant messaging. It incorporates support for the new BlackBerry Mobile Data System v4.1 (MDS) application environment, which includes BlackBerry MDS Studio, a visual development tool for creating BlackBerry wireless applications from Web Services.

RIM also rolled out BlackBerry Enterprise Server Small Business Edition v4.1 for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino.

New functions in the enterprise edition include BlackBerry Manager, which provides one common interface to manage multiple servers. It also provides group-based administration, support for multiple administrator roles, instant messaging, and PIN-to-PIN and SMS message audit logs.