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Singapore's SingTel became the first mobie operator in the world to deliver Research In Motion's BlackBerry service to Palm, Inc.'s Treo 650 smartphone today.

Available through the BlackBerry Connect program, which RIM introduced in March 2003 to expand BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) support - with its push-based wireless architecture and infrastructure to competitors mobile devices - SingTel Treo customers will now get the very same mob-e-mail and data capabilities usually reserved for BlackBerry wireless handhelds.

For example, through BlackBerry Connect, SingTel will start offering secure, push-based wireless e-mail via RIM's BES to Palm's VersaMail e-mail client on the Treo 650.

The solution also delivers BlackBerry-based support for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino, automatic wireless calendar synchronization, remote address lookup of corporate e-mail directory, e-mail-attachment viewing, Triple DES encryption, and IT policy enforcement and commands—such as remotely disabling or wiping e-mail and PIM data from a device in the event it is lost or stolen.

Palm and RIM announced plans to extend BlackBerry Connect to Treos last October. There's no word on when a carrier may offer the service for a Treo in the U.S.

For RIM, BlackBerry Connect gives its customers more flexibility in choosing devices to support in the enterprise. After all, the company isn't just in the hardware business - even though it has sold 5 million devices and 70 percent of its revenue comes from BlackBerrys. About 20 percent of earnings is from the service itself.

Palm, for its part, is always looking to enhance its place in the eyes of the enterprise. Coming out with a Windows Mobile smartphone, the Treo 700w, was one step in that direction; enabling support for the most popular and respected wireless corporate e-mail solution should prove another.

All both companies need now is to get operators in the U.S., RIM and Palm's largest market, to roll out Treos with BlackBerry Connect.

The only shipping smartphone to support BlackBerry Connect in the U.S. is Nokia's 9300. Another handset, the much more phone-like (thinner and sleeker) Samsung SGH-T719 made its inaugural appearance at CTIA last week. It is much smaller than either a BlackBerry, Treo or the 9300, and it sports the same SureType keyboard/keypad hybrid as RIM's more phone-like 7100 BlackBerry series. The T719 isn't due to ship until September, however.