Back at WES we got a look at the Google Connector for BES and along with the enhanced gmail plugin, Google Connector has been released after missing their initial launch target date of July. The application which comes free to Google Apps Premier and Education users, allows for integration with BlackBerry Enterprise Servers without any need for an Exchange server. Seems as though the reason Google missed their launch date was due to new features being added, here is a break down:
- Messages sent to your Gmail inbox are pushed to your BlackBerry within 60 seconds.
- Emails read/deleted on your BlackBerry are marked as read/deleted in Gmail, and vice-versa.
- Emails archived/starred on your BlackBerry are archived/starred in Gmail, and vice-versa.
- BlackBerry folders are synchronized with labels in Gmail.
- You can search for contact information of coworkers from the global address list on your BlackBerry.
- Contacts in Gmail are automatically synchronized with your BlackBerry address book.
- You can view your Google Calendar schedule with the native
BlackBerry application, with one-way synchronization from Google
Calendar to your BlackBerry device. Two-way calendar sync with the
ability to accept, decline and schedule meetings from your BlackBerry
device is not available with this release but we are working on it. - Administrators can use the management and security tools that are part of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
Google has set up some great information on their blog to further assist those interested, be sure to check it out. This may be great for some, but the lack of two way synch is still an issue within this application as it is with the enhanced gmail plugin, so if you have an exchange server now ya might wanna make sure the switch is the right choice should you be looking towards google connecter.
