BlackBerry maker Research In Motion on Tuesday introduced a new browser for its devices, which runs on WebKit, the rendering engine behind Apple’s Safari browser. The New BlackBerry browser is touted as easier and faster to use, and will be available later this year.
RIM announced a new WebKit-based web browser, which would compete directly with the iPhone’s mobile Safari and Android’s web browser (both also use WebKit). Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis emphasized network efficiency in his keynote, and said that the new BlackBerry browser would make efficiency a priority as well
The new WebKit-based BlackBerry browser was showed scoring 100 percent in the Web-rendering Acid 3 test, and can handle AJAX, CSS and HTML5. The browser can also pan, zoom and scroll through websites loaded, and RIM claims that it’s more network-efficient than other mobile browsers.
Finally, Lazaridis announced a free version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express — a simplified version of the BES server that many large businesses and institutions run to support BlackBerry e-mail. The BES Express server will run on existing mail servers, and will come with free server and client licenses. A higher end version will offer social network and video features.
Research in Motion on Tuesday unveiled its BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, free server software that’s designed to appeal to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). It’s a nice move that could be better.
Strategically, BES Express is a way to keep RIM’s server tools in the SMB market. These companies will eventually grow up and stick with RIM in the future.
However, RIM’s approach could be better. As Jason noted, if RIM really wanted to court SMBs and keep them as customers in the future it would offer free hosted BES for up to 25 users.
RIM has been very allusive though on availability details for its new browser, which is expected sometime later this year.