Rave Wireless, BlackBerry Eye Higher Ed Market

Rave Wireless (News - Alert) reportedly has announced deeper product integration between its safety applications and BlackBerry (News - Alert) smartphones.

 

Rave Wireless officials are expecting to benefit from the global use of BlackBerry smartphones – such as the Pearl 8130 model, pictured below – and will work with Research In Motion’s sales groups to market products in higher education and other vertical markets. Expect marketing efforts to kick off this week at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference.

 

Rave Wireless sells mobile safety applications to higher education. Company officials say many institutions use its Rave Alert emergency notification system, and others have launched the Rave Guardian personal mobile alarm.

 

A couple months ago, as reported on TMCnet, Congress passed, and President Bush signed, Higher Education Act, saying that higher education institutions must have procedures to “immediately notify the campus community upon the confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or staff occurring on the campus,” among other provisions.

 

Apparently, Rave seized upon the legislation as a marketing foot in the door.

The “deeper product integration” lets organizations use the Rave Alert system to send emergency notifications to BlackBerry smartphone users through PIN messaging. A PIN uniquely identifies BlackBerry smart phones on the wireless network. By sending alerts via PIN message, administrators can track who has received and opened the messages.

 

This new delivery mode will join text messaging, e-mail, RSS and recorded voice messages as ways to send notifications through Rave Alert, further increasing broadcast alert deliverability and accountability.

 

It also gives police officers and other first responders the ability to monitor Rave Guardian personal mobile alarm cases on their BlackBerry smart phones. Rave Guardian is a phone-accessed application that can be armed, and when triggered, automatically sends the user’s picture, mobile number and personal information to campus police.

 

Company officials say Rave Guardian works on any cell phone from any provider in the United States, and in many cases can even display the user’s GPS location on a map for campus police or other first responders to provide assistance more quickly.

 

The new law also requires higher education institutions put into place procedures to manage situations in which students are reported missing.