Research in Motion and Palm Inc., maker of the popular Treo mobile PDA, today announced plans to bring BlackBerry Connect to the Palm Treo 650 early in 2006. The Treo 650 will become the second device, behind the Nokia 9300, to support BlackBerry Connect in the United States.

Historically, the Treo has been one of the biggest competitors to BlackBerry handhelds but through the BlackBerry Connect licensing program, Palm will enable its Treo 650 and future Palm OS based Treo smartphones with secure, push based wireless email via BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Unfortunately, the agreement specifically states that it will be compatible with Palm OS based Treo smartphones. That means “No Go” for Palms Windows Mobile 5 powered Treo 700.

The BlackBerry Connect Solution for Palm Treo will include:

  • Push based email using BlackBerry Connect with Palm’s VersaMail email client
  • Support for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino
  • Wireless calendar synchronization
  • Convenient email attachment viewing
  • Triple DES encryption
  • IT policy enforment and commands