RIM Pulls the Plug on BlackBerry Unite!

Ahhh poor BlackBerry Unite! It burst onto the scene with big promise of new features such as sharing calendars, assisting with user control over devices and implementing desktop to BlackBerry file transfers. But with a rough start for some users having issues with an IT Policy being unknowingly installed on their devices and causing all kinds of chaos, BlackBerry Unite had many people disliking it even before it got off the ground. A couple of revisions later, some of the issues were resolved many still remained and while we heard that the cancellation of Unite was well on its way a post on the official BlackBerry support forums drove the final nail in the coffin.

Please be aware that BlackBerry® Unite! is no longer available for
download. RIM plans to continue support for current BlackBerry Unite!
customers until July 2, 2010. For more information about other
BlackBerry solutions for small business, visit the BlackBerry Solution Wizard.

And with the blow that Unite! is done, in walks a glimpse of BlackBerry Groups which seems to be a better implementation of what RIM's original vision of Unite! was to be from the beginning, just but more refined and in an on-device only app form. Time will tell on that but hopefully that will turn out to be the case. R.I.P Unite!

6 Comments

Posted by bryan.anderson Tuesday, Apr 28, 2009 1020 days ago

I think this is a real shame. I came from a business environment where the BES obviously synced emails as well as calendar, contacts, etc.

With MobileMe working so well for the iPhone, the Blackberry BIS users NEED something that will keep their desktop sync'd with the handheld without having to cable up every night. Unite looked like a good option.

Posted by Chazberry Tuesday, Apr 28, 2009 1020 days ago

I agree that Unite! looked like a good option but hopefully Blackberry Groups will be all Unite! was and more. I like the idea that RIM is going the software route instead of the PC route. The less I have to connect my blackberry to a PC to do something the better. With the release of Groups and even google sync (for personal users) there are very few reasons to connect your blackberry other then OS updates (which hopefully the over the air updates will negate that to) and backups. I can now sync all my contacts to google and not have to worry about backing them up. I suppose we will find out more come WES 2009.

Cheers to RIM!

Posted by reeneebob Tuesday, Apr 28, 2009 1020 days ago

Good riddance. I still can't use my laptop with my Curve because of this POS program. I cannot get rid of the IT policy no matter how hard I scour the laptop and as soon as you plug a berry in, BOOM it`s IT policy is locked again.