Still got your Blackberry users hanging off Internet-based email accounts? Blackberry's maker RIM is offering a free single-user license for BlackBerry server software for Exchange.

The SMB market is hot to trot, says the company behind the iconic BlackBerry, but there’s more to be done to bring many of the device’s enterprise-level benefits down to smaller companies.

“There’s been a significant level of growth in our SMB segment within Australia over the last 18 months” says Greg Wade, vice-president for customer accounts in RIM’s Asia-Pacific region. “The carriers are recognising that the opportunity is ripe, and so we’re seeing the emergence of offers targetted at the SMB space”.

One of these is 3’s offer of free BlackBerry Professional Server software for any customer buying more than five handsets from the carrier. However, RIM is also working to help existing SMB users upgrade from an Internet-based mail experience (which uses the carrier-provided BlackBerry Internet Service to check POP3 and IMAP accounts) to their own company server-based system. The bait is BlackBerry Professional Software Express – a free single-user version of the BPS package. The software can be downloaded free from www.blackberry.com/select/professional/express.shtml without any limit to the program’s operating time or functionality.

“If you’re on the BlackBerry Internet Service and are interested in taking a look at BPS for your business you’ll still want to try it out first” Wade says. “BPS Express provides you with capability of getting the full-blown BlackBerry experience, only the number of client access licences is limited to one”. BPS provides synchronised email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks but runs on an existing Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino server.

RIM is also encouraging customers to see their BlackBerry as more than just an email and scheduling device. “Our experience is that once you have a BlackBerry in your hands and you gain that BlackBerry experience in terms of connectivity, productivity and access to information, you keep asking ‘what more can I do with this platform’?” Wade explains. The company’s ‘Built for BlackBerry’ software library (builtforblackberry.com) provides a way for customers to explore what else the BlackBerry can do, with hundreds of third-party programs spanning six categories from news, travel and weather to navigation and mapping, with some games thrown in for good measure.