Amid a flurry of new product announcements from Research In Motion (RIM) today, one of the most important offers from RIM is a retooled Voice over WiFi package called BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 (MVS 5). Back in February, I was treated to a preview of Cisco’s mobile applications for the iPhone and described them here. The demo showed the power of a wireless client for the Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage Server to extend a rich set of IP-PBX features to employees wherever they may be (as long as they are close to WiFi access points).

At the time, Cisco noted that versions of the client would be out “soon” for both the Blackberry and for the Nokia E-Series handsets. The corporate call for a Blackberry-based solution is obvious. MVS 5 provides IT departments with the mechanism to manage calling plans, security settings and PBX-like features to their Blackberry-toting employees. That can lead to toll savings and greater confidence in the security and privacy over wireless links. Cisco has also been adding a number of bells-and-whistles to its fixed-to-mobile offering, most notably a protocol for “call preservation” which assures that users can quickly restore a call should it be interrupted by lost connectivity or a move from a mobile phone to a fixed-line or extension.

Cisco and RIM have been offering similar features to corporate customers in Europe for about a year and many of the features represent a new packaging of capabilites that RIM brought in-house with the purchase of Ascendent Systems in 2006. MVS 5 will be formally available “later this year.” As noted in our February post, clients for Android and even Windows Phone are not far behind.

Categories: Articles

Tags: mobile services, RIM, Cisco, VoIP