Agito Brings VoIP, UC To BlackBerry

The fixed-mobile convergence vendor had already made its VoIP over Wi-Fi and mobile unified communications capabilities available on a host of smartphones and dual-mode devices. But to be a true player in the space, it needed to capitalize on BlackBerry, the most popular enterprise smartphone in the business.

And now, Agito, which has been called out in the past for its lack of BlackBerry support, is adding the now-iconic BlackBerry line from Research In Motion (RIM) to its roster of supported devices.

"I wish this was an isolated case, but it's not. We see it a lot more than we're comfortable with," said Pejman Roshan, Agito's chief marketing officer, referring to customers balking at deploying Agito's RoamAnywhere Mobility Router due to lack of BlackBerry support.

Agito's RoamAnywhere Mobility Router offers mobile UC that lets companies mobilize voice and UC applications and ultimately reduce costs. On Monday, Agito unveiled Agito for BlackBerry, which now adds the popular RIM devices to its lineup.

The addition of BlackBerry, which was two years in development, also will ease challenges for resellers, who struggled to crack into new accounts where BlackBerry was the mobile device of choice.

Agito has supported Symbian OS devices since the company launched in 2007 and Microsoft Windows Mobile support was added the next year, but BlackBerry was the missing piece of the puzzle.

The new addition delivers VoIP, UC and PBX functionality to BlackBerry smartphone users over the wireless LAN, while also unlocking those capabilities over users' respective cellular networks.

Roshan said that previously, BlackBerry users could access UC and PBX functionality such as single-number reach and voicemail, along with other functions, over the cellular network only, which limited the use of the devices indoors. Now, Roshan said, Agito is delivering true mobility by offering PBX functionality to BlackBerrys over the WLAN, including Agito's Wi-Fi to cellular handoff, which switches calls from one network to another when users move in and out of range.

Agito for BlackBerry also can deliver a host of midcall features on BlackBerry smartphones, such as hold, conferencing, transfer, a single enterprise number, voicemail, directory query and call retrieve. Other features include international direct dialing and roaming, least-cost routing, reverse dialing, automatic SIM swap and dynamic calling rules.

Roshan said at its launch, Agito for BlackBerry will offer VoIP and PBX functionality and instant messaging and presence capabilities will follow. Because Agito developed the capabilities through BlackBerry's application developer program, users don't require BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS), but the devices must be managed by BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). Agito's BlackBerry functionality will work on several popular models such as the BlackBerry Bold 9000, the BlackBerry Curve 8900, the BlackBerry 8800 and the BlackBerry Curve 8300.

The new functionality, which will be available in early July, bumps Agito's support to nearly 50 devices in total.

Roshan said now that BlackBerry is under Agito's belt, the company has set its sights on the Apple iPhone, with a prototype that's expected to be available by the end of summer. Roshan added that Agito also is seeing initial interest in the Palm Pre, so the company is starting to look at supporting that as well.