Jaipur IT firm to help BlackBerry users stay connected

JAIPUR - A Jaipur-based software firm claims to have found an answer to the problem that BlackBerry users will face if the government decides to ban its messenger and corporate e-mail services.

Data Infosys, an IT Services company and the largest Internet Service Provider in Rajasthan, is going to launch Bharat Berry, an India-compliant service for the existing users of BlackBerry phones who are worried about disruption of BlackBerry’s messaging and email services.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) and India’s government are at present holding talks over access to BlackBerry services for an intelligence agency. The government had threatened to ban Blackberry’s corporate email and messenger services if the Canada-based firm failed to comply with Indian security norms.

Unchecked terrorist activities are the major concern of security agencies as it can escape detection by using BlackBerry’s coded services.

“The Bharat Berry service on a BlackBerry handset ensures that you remain connected to your email, calendar and contacts through the servers hosted in India,” Ajay Data, CEO of Data Infosys Limited, told IANS here.

In addition, Bharat Berry provides over-the-air (OTA) synchronization of calendar, contacts and works with your personal or organisation mail accounts, he said.

“Bharat Berry works through a mix of its very advanced email server known as XGeNPlus, and open source technologies. Our servers are hosted in India; hence there is no compliance issue,” said Data, a Ph.D. in Electronic Data Processing from Netherlands.

XGenPlus is an advanced email server which has been integrated using open source technologies.

Open source technologies can enable universal access to all users as the codes are available freely.

The Bharat Berry software can be downloaded from the website www.bharatberry.com. For enabling access to all services including e-mails, users will be charged Rs.100 per month, while to ensure access and synchronisation of calendar and contacts the user will have to pay Rs.50 per month.

“We have tested the service thoroughly on all BlackBerry models and it works well with all of them. It is a completely secure, fully tested, and totally reliable service,” claimed Data.

“Currently the software is targeted on BlackBerry handsets and by next month, it will be supporting all major mobile handsets based on Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile and J2ME, which will cover all major mobile handset providers like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, etc.,” he said.

Symbia, Android, Windows Mobile are mobile software platforms used by various manufacturers.

The messenger service of the BlackBerry device can still not be tracked as RIM has stated that it is not possible for the company to provide the security agencies access to its encrypted mail and messenger service as it did not possess a “master key” for interception.

The government has extended an earlier deadline of Aug 31 by two months to allow BlackBerry — which has one million subscribers in the country — access to its encrypted email message for security reasons.

(Anil Sharma can be contacted at anil.s@ians.in)