Messaging and collaborations solutions provider IceWarp has revealed that its customers with BlackBerry devices were largely unaffected by last week’s outage. IceWarp’s architecture allows its users to bypass the RIM infrastructure and connect a BlackBerry device directly to the corporate email server.

IceWarp’s architecture is based on universal standards, doesn’t depend on any client and supports all mobile devices currently on the market, including the iPhone 4S, with the new capability of syncing reminders (tasks) and secure email encryption using S/MIME certificates.

“The outage reached monstrous proportions because of the RIM email synchronization structure,” notes IceWarp president, Ladislav Goc. “When you activate a BlackBerry device, it sends your mail server information, username and password to the RIM global data centre. Then the BlackBerry mail server uses the email connection information to retrieve messages from your corporate email, put them into the Blackberry servers and then push them back to your BlackBerry device. Such dependency is very dangerous. If the RIM servers are affected, millions of people are cut from their business-critical applications.”

While BlackBerry devices are gradually losing their market share, IceWarp believes they still have a future in the corporate world. “Millions of businesses are used to them, and the only bottleneck that needs to be removed is the RIM synchronization dependency,” says Goc. “We solved this problem some time ago. With IceWarp Server installed in your office or your data centre, you can cut the RIM infrastructure out.”