AOL to Enable Push Email and IM on BlackBerry Phones

Published on: 10th September 2008

AOL and Research In Motion (RIM) have announced the availability of AOL's AIM and ICQ instant messaging services as well as AOL Mail on BlackBerry smartphones. Users will also benefit from integration between AIM, ICQ and the BlackBerry Address Book. Users will be able to associate a contact in their IM contact list to the respective contact in their BlackBerry Address Book (and vice versa), which will allow the user to initiate an IM session from within their BlackBerry Address Book and initiate a phone call, email, SMS or MMS from within their AIM or ICQ session.

BlackBerry users will also be able to set customized away messages and manage their AIM or ICQ online status (e.g. available, away, in a meeting, etc.) directly from the BlackBerry smartphone's home screen without launching the AIM or ICQ application

AOL Mail for BlackBerry smartphones leverages the "push" architecture inherent in the BlackBerry platform and AOL's notification services to automatically deliver AOL Mail messages virtually simultaneously to the user's online account as well as to the user's BlackBerry smartphone. The status of messages that have been sent, read, replied to, forwarded or deleted from the smartphone are automatically reflected in the user's online AOL Mail account. Users can create a dedicated AOL Mail inbox on their BlackBerry smartphone or choose to set up a single inbox on their smartphone to store AOL Mail as well as messages from other IMAP or POP 3 e-mail accounts.

BlackBerry smartphone users with software version 4.5 or higher will also be able to view HTML email, download attachments and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on the smartphone.

AOL Mail, AIM and ICQ for BlackBerry smartphones are available now in the U.S. and are expected to become available in other countries around the world over the coming months.

 

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