As you are probably aware, Research In Motion has been having a bit of a hard time with their BlackBerry smartphones in certain countries and has been under constant threat of having their devices banned.
Well it appears that the BlackBerry ban in India has been avoided as according to an article over on IBN Live, RIM has agreed to allow the Central Government of India access to their BlackBerry Messenger service.
Apparently Frenny Bawa of RIM India spoke to CNBC-TV18 stating that Research In Motion had allowed the government real time access to BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry email; however Bawa did confirm that enterprise email was unavailable to the Indian government.
Bawa stated…”Contrary to what some believe we have no specific deals with any government of any sorts. So our position on enterprise is standard across the globe and it hasn’t changed anywhere. It is standard for India as well. We have proven our commitment to India by dealing very constructively on the BlackBerry messenger issue.”
It doesn’t really come as a surprise that RIM has agreed to certain access by the Indian government as the BlackBerry maker had agreed to provide a real time access solution by the 31st of January.
Bawa also confirmed that RIM had cooperated with all of the Indian governments demands over security access with consumer BlackBerry messenger and email. However when it comes to enterprise apparently the government I still working to solve the matter.
As they say, money speaks louder than words and I figure RIM wasn’t prepared to lose out on any revenue if they didn’t conform to India’s requests on the matter.
