BlackBerry preps over-the-air calendar sync for families

Blackberry parent company RIM has announced a service that will allow up to five Blackberry users to sync their calendar and contacts between handsets, over-the-air -- a service that has previously been limited to corporate Blackberry users with the expensive Blackberry Enterprise Server software. 

The service, called BlackBerry Unite, is a forthcoming Windows-based program to allow small groups of up to five BlackBerry users to share their calendars, contact lists, photos and documents direct from each user's BlackBerry, as well as remotely access content that's sitting on a PC. This last one sounds a treat, as it could be used to serve everything from documents to music and video clips over the airwaves.

All together now: BlackBerry Unity allows up to five BlackBerry users to share their stuff in a private group. As there are SIX people in this photo, somebody's gonna get dumped...

The program also hands users some enterprise-level security features such as backing up a BlackBerry over the air (using either the mobile network or a Wi-Fi connection, in the case of the next gen of BlackBerry devices) to the owner's desktop PC and even a ‘search and destroy' command which can be issued from the desktop to erase a lost or stolen BlackBerry.

BlackBerry Unite will debut next month on devices sold through Spanish carrier Telefonica, but there's no reason to expect we won't soon see this on the menu of local carriers.