RIM VP of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Software John Vandermay Leaves

The latest VP to leave RIM is John Vandermay who used to be the Vice President of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Software (BES). According to the Financial Post he is leaving for a Vancouver based mining company to be the VP of product development. While I am sad to see another VP go I am also glad to see that RIM is shaking things up internally with management changes. We have no idea why these VP’s are leaving or were forced out but one of the things I have consistently heard from RIM employees is that there was definitely a need for a “change of the guard” with executive management especially ones that were underperforming.

It will be interesting to learn if RIM is simply cleaning house or there are other reasons for the exodus. Some of that story will be told tomorrow during RIM’s after hours investors call and earnings report.

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Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server updated to v 4.0

Always welcome news for me and the Enterprise BlackBerry faithful, late last week Google updated the Google Apps Connector for BES. It's great to see that this is a product Google plans to keep up-to-date and shows that BlackBerry and BES is critical to the business user.

In addition to supporting BES 5.0 service pack 3, version 4.0 of the Google Apps connector brings some of my favorite business features. Theses new features are Free/Busy look-up and support for read receipt.

The new support for read receipt is exactly what is sounds like. It allows for the tag to be added to an email messages that offers the sender to receive an acknowledgement that you did in fact receive the message.

The free/busy look-up is invaluable in a business environment. If you are looking to schedule a meeting or a conference call with several colleagues you can drive yourself crazy just sending out a meeting invite and having everyone propose new times because they have conflicts in their calendars. Free/Busy support allows you to view the availability of the attendees you're inviting, not their actual calendar details but just the times that they are free or busy.

Here's a screenshot of a calendar item I'm making for a CrackBerry meeting, after I add the attendees to the appointment I have the option to view the attendees availability.

Again these are welcome features for BES users in the Google Apps environment. Thanks Google keep 'em coming!