RIM is dominating in the business space. Nokia needs to do something to begin to get their money's worth from their Intellisync acquisition. The BlackBerry Connect service was never as robust as users would like. It allowed basic functionality but not at the same as a BlackBerry device. Nokia thinks they can do a better job with their own syncing server and that enterprise customers will find this a compelling story to support Nokia devices.

Last week Mobile today announced that two new devices, the E71 and E66, will not be supporting the BlackBerry Connect software. BlackBerry Connect allows non-BlackBerry devices to interact with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, allowing an Enterprise to only deploy one system, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, to connect all their devices to the corporate email system. With this announcement, Nokia is stating that they are distancing themselves from RIM and making a push back into the business phone market.

This split means that business customer's IT departments will be forced to choose one platform or the other, or in some cases, both. Actually this split is not surprising. In 2005, Nokia acquired Intellisync for $430M USD. Intellisync provides a syncing platform that allows non-BlackBerry devices to sync to email, including Novell GroupWise, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange.

Here is the quote in the Mobile story from Nokia:

Nokia UK MD Simon Ainslie told Mobile: ‘RIM are a competitor and have done a reasonable job in a space that is traditionally ours, so it’s no great surprise that we see this as an opportunity to give consumers a proper choice on what email solution they want.

‘Our approach is to make email a mass-market proposition for everybody, not just for the corporate boardroom group of individuals where BlackBerry has established itself.’

This quote and move my Nokia makes it clear that Nokia believes they have chance to gain some market share in the Enterprise space.

I spoke with Paul DePond, CEO of Notify Technologies, a company that provides a syncing solution for Nokia, BlackBerry devices, and most of the device on the market to Novell GroupWise, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and many other email platforms.

Mr. DePond has been in the industry for more than 20 years and commented the following:

BlissBlog: How significant is this announcement by Nokia to not support BlackBerry Connect in two of their new devices?

DePond: This isn't that big of deal since this has been a long time in coming. Most organizations are already deploying multiple servers to support RIM and Nokia devices.

BlissBlog: Why wouldn't Nokia just continue to support this, covering their bases by having their phones connect to their own servers and to RIM.

DePond: RIM is dominating in the business space. Nokia needs to do something to begin to get their money's worth from their Intellisync acquisition. The BlackBerry Connect service was never as robust as users would like. It allowed basic functionality but not at the same as a BlackBerry device. Nokia thinks they can do a better job with their own syncing server and that enterprise customers will find this a compelling story to support Nokia devices.

Let's not forget, Nokia has a lot more devices out there than RIM. This is a move by Nokia to draw the battle lines for the enterprise customer.