The most expensive, but most useful berries around are coming to Fanshawe

The BlackBerry, a personal computer, cell phone and organizer all rolled into one trendy piece of technology, is no longer reserved for high powered business people with stocks to check and hectic schedules to coordinate.

BlackberryThe City of London and affiliates, which include Fanshawe College, have partnered with Waterloo based Research In Motion (RIM) to pilot a project that would give city workers, like doctors and emergency workers, the opportunity to step beyond the edge of current technology by expanding communication abilities with the BlackBerry wireless device.

According to Fanshawe's Chief Information Officer Bob Beatty, this consortium is the first of it's kind in the entire world with RIM, which aims to develop new uses for BlackBerry technology. Since July of 2004, Fanshawe's Information Technology support staff have used the devices to improve response times for support to classrooms with technology problems.

The City of London announced that the partnership "intends to go beyond wireless email and provide field employees with a broader solution that can generate additional workflow efficiencies."

Other municipal agencies involved include London Fire Services, London Hydro, London Health Sciences Centre and London Police Services.

There are currently 65 BlackBerry phones in use by staff at Fanshawe, 35 with support technicians and the remaining are primarily being used by managers, VP's and deans.

"If a professor has a problem with a high tech classroom … the BlackBerry can help get service to them quickly," said Beatty, who stressed that if a problem is not fixed within a 5 to 10 minute window most students either leave the classroom or lose focus.

Since the college began communicating with the BlackBerry, Beatty said it's rare that instructors lose their class to loss of technical difficulties, which is a huge accomplishment considering 85 per cent of Fanshawe classrooms are labeled high tech.

The new city wide initiative also allows each different sector to instantly communicate with each other, which can make emergency service workers work more efficiently together.

"We know if there was an emergency, like the gas leak we had here… we could communicate with the police, fire services and the city in real time," said Beatty.

University of Waterloo engineering student Mike Lazaridis and University of Windsor engineering student Douglas Fregin founded RIM in 1984. The company introduced the BlackBerry 950 wireless hand held in 1998 and quickly began making their mark on the wireless technology field by winning corporate accounts, not to mention countless awards.

In 2004, BlackBerry had over one million subscribers from all over the world and continues to expand in the market of wireless, handheld technology.