RIM Publishes New Features Of BES 5.0 SP4

It may be a bit premature, but RIM has published details regarding BES 5.0 SP4. There are quite a few changes and fixes in this release, most notably attachment features have been significantly enhanced. BES users can now download larger attachments, and view more messages upon activation. There are also several security enhancements, new calendar features for OS 7.1 devices, and now Administrators can create VPN profiles for their users. In addition RIM has also included some enhancements that reduce the workload on the server that is hosting the BC database.

Here are some of the highlighted features from the release notes:

New Messaging Features

• Includes support for sending messages that use Latin characters along with Hebrew or Arabic characters.
• The maximum size of HTML email messages has been increased from 32KB to 300KB.
• The default maximum attachment size has been increased from from 3MB to 10MB.
• Synchronizes the full body of sent messages to the BlackBerry® smartphone.
• The time from the BlackBerry® smartphone is used to indicate the time a message was sent instead of using the time on the server. Sent messages now display the correct sent time even if the BlackBerry® smartphone is in a time zone that is different from the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server.
• The BlackBerry® Attachment Service now supports password-protected attachments.
• The BlackBerry® Attachment Service for displays more shapes from Microsoft® PowerPoint® attachments.

Email Pre-Population

• The default number of messages to prepopulate has been increased to 1000 or 14 days of messages (whichever is less).
• Performs prepopulation at every activation, not just when a PIN changes (for example if all data and applications are deleted and the smartphone is activated again).
• Includes both header and body information in prepopulated messages.

New Calendar Features

• Canceled meetings can be left in the calendar on BlackBerry® smartphones instead of automatically removing them. This feature is supported on BlackBerry® device software 7.1 and higher.

Security Enhancements

• Includes security enhancements that are designed to allow verification of data integrity and authenticity for organizations that use multiple layers of encryption.

BlackBerry Enteprise Server Resource Kit

• The BlackBerry® Enterprise Transporter includes online help.
• Does not include the BlackBerry® Domain Search tool because BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion Studio includes the features the tool offered.

Performance Features

• Includes enhancements that reduce the workload on the computer that hosts the BlackBerry® Configuration Database.

Access Control Policies

• Administrators can assign access control policies to both individuals and groups.

VPN Profile Certificates

• Administrators can configure VPN profile certificates for BlackBerry® smartphones so that users do not need to perform this task.

Administrators can read the knowledge base article here.

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