Today at the Mobile World Congress, RIM announced the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express (BESE). BESE is positioned by RIM as a free(!) alternative for small to medium sized companies which require BlackBerry’s security and manageability, but don’t require all enterprise funtions. For example, this also means lack of advanced monitoring and high availability options found in the enterprise product. BESE will work with Exchange 2003 SP2, 2007 SP1 and 2010 in combination with Windows SBS 2003 and 2008. Very helpful is the BlackBerry comparison chart you can download here (PDF).

You can read the full press release here. BESE is scheduled for release in March. BESE has its own webpage on RIM’s website here.