Microsoft Sowing the Seeds of Blackberry

EddieC 0 423 Views

Microsoft continues to reach out and touch mobile device makers and their carriers. The company today announced a deal with Research in Motion that will enhance integration between Microsoft’s Windows Live services and Blackberry 7000 and 8000 series devices as well as the BlackBerry Bold, a brand-new model unveiled today that’s also known as the 9000. Microsoft last year struck a similar deal with Nokia for its popular Series 60 devices and is now in talks to also include the Series 40.

Developers of applications for BlackBerry devices will be able to enable apps to send and receive instant messages from Microsoft’s Live Messenger servers, join chat groups, set presence information, see presence status of others, save transcripts from conversations and send and receive files.

The companies also will work together to allow BlackBerry push technology to automatically send Live Hotmail messages and keep devices in sync with their online account and choose between a dedicated Hotmail inbox or a unified inbox for multiple e-mail accounts. People with an existing account on a Windows Live server would be able to gain access from a BlackBerry using their existing address and password. E-mail messages delivered to the BlackBerry will be able to display HTML with graphics, photos and hyperlinks.

But making all these capabilities a reality for devices hinges on gaining approval from carriers. Microsoft reportedly has relationships with more than 140 carriers that involve its Windows Live services, including recent deals with Latin America’s Telefonica and T-Mobile of Europe.

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Brief update and practical context to ’s original post: the Microsoft–RIM effort from 2008 did result in a BlackBerry Windows Live Messenger client that shipped that summer, but the surrounding Microsoft services have changed a lot since then — Hotmail was reworked as Outlook.com in 2012 and Windows Live/ Messenger was retired and consolidated into Skype in 2013. Because of those changes, the server endpoints, protocols and authentication methods that developers and users relied on in 2008 are not the same today, and that affects compatibility for legacy BlackBerry clients. (arstechnica.com)

Practical troubleshooting notes for legacy BlackBerry devices still trying to access a Microsoft mailbox: configure the account as IMAP/SMTP if the device supports it — incoming imap-mail.outlook.com (port 993, SSL/TLS) and outgoing smtp-mail.outlook.com (port 587, STARTTLS) with the full email as username. If the Microsoft account uses two‑step verification, generate an app password and use it in the device. For business/education mailboxes hosted on Exchange Online, be aware that Basic authentication has been deprecated and tenants now require Modern (OAuth2) authentication, so older EAS/IMAP clients may be blocked unless a migration path is provided. (support.microsoft.com)

Advice for developers: do not try to re-use the old Windows Live/Messenger protocols. Build new integrations on Microsoft Graph (REST + OAuth2) or update server components to act as an OAuth‑aware bridge for legacy clients. Exchange Web Services for Exchange Online no longer receives feature updates and Graph is the recommended surface for mail, calendar and people data. If supporting old BlackBerry apps is unavoidable, put an authenticated, audited server adapter in front of Microsoft APIs rather than embedding long‑lived credentials in devices. (learn.microsoft.com)

Operational checklist (short): confirm device/OS firmware, refresh BlackBerry service books/BES profiles, try IMAP with an app password for consumer Outlook accounts, and fall back to the Outlook.com web UI or a modern mobile client when a legacy app won’t authenticate. For enterprise mail, coordinate with IT to confirm modern‑auth support or a migration plan. (support.microsoft.com)

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