Atlanta and Waterloo, ON - Cbeyond Inc. (Nasdaq: CBEY) and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today introduced the BlackBerry® wireless platform together with Cbeyond's BeyondMobile service.
BlackBerry enables Cbeyond subscribers to easily access email, phone, text messaging, Internet, organizer and other data applications from a single, integrated device. By using BlackBerry to wirelessly access business applications, Cbeyond customers will be able to increase productivity and effectiveness for individuals and workgroups.
The BlackBerry solution, including the CDMA-based BlackBerry 7250™, is now offered in conjunction with Cbeyond's BeyondMobile service. Cbeyond is offering BeyondMobile as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), but with a different approach to bundling and billing voice calling minutes. Because Cbeyond offers landline, Internet and mobile services, it bundles all long distance, toll-free and mobile minutes together. Cbeyond's small business customers can apply any unused long distance and toll free minutes to their mobile service and vice versa for free. The sharing of minutes is seamless and requires no intervention from the business owner. Cbeyond also lets small businesses pool all mobile minutes across employees so there's no need to juggle different rate plans.
?We are thrilled to bring the power, innovation and convenience of BlackBerry to our small business customers,? said Brent Cobb, vice president of Mobile Services for Cbeyond. ?In market research, our customers told us they want mobile voice and data from Cbeyond. We believe that BlackBerry represents the best-in-class mobile solution in the marketplace today.?
?BlackBerry supports a wide range of wireless applications and continues to be the leading wireless platform for both large and small businesses,? said Mark Guibert, Vice President Corporate Marketing at Research In Motion. ?We are very pleased to be working with Cbeyond to help small business professionals increase mobile productivity and enhance communications, collaboration and customer service.?
For Cbeyond's business customers, BlackBerry Enterprise Server™ - Small Business Edition tightly integrates with Microsoft® Exchange, IBM Lotus® Domino™ and Novell GroupWise™ systems to enable secure, push-based, wireless access to email and other business data.
In addition, BlackBerry Internet Service™ allows users to access up to ten business and/or personal email accounts (including Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and most popular ISP email accounts) from a single device.
The BeyondMobile service from Cbeyond is nationwide with no roaming charges. Customers receive a consolidated bill for all of their landline and mobile communications services and have only one number to call for support. The BlackBerry 7250 will retail for $449 on a two year contract from Cbeyond. Wireless email and data services will be priced at $40 per month which includes unlimited data usage. Cbeyond will offer a single voice plan of $40 for 500 monthly minutes plus six cents per minute thereafter.
