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BM and RIM announced a strategic partnership to help mainstream workers move beyond basic communications (email, phone, etc.) to working with their peers wirelessly on the road as if they were in the office, including holding meetings, finding experts, analyzing and sharing data, instant messaging and co-authoring new works.
IBM and RIM announced t IBM Lotus Connections, IBM’s Web 2.0 social networking software for the enterprise, will be available on the BlackBerry - along with personalized portal dashboards, business intelligence and advanced collaboration and unified communications software.
They also announced IBM’s new hosting capabilities to support the BlackBerry platform. IBM has also joined the BlackBerry System Integrator (SI) Alliance Program.
IBM will expand its portfolio of Managed Wireless Services for the BlackBerry platform, leveraging its already successful services offering that currently hosts more than 100,000 enterprise end users globally. The offering builds upon the strength of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server product line with a far-reaching suite of services that include hosting, consulting, systems integration, and deployment of enterprise applications on the converged platform.
BM and RIM Mobilize Web 2.0 Capabilities
The joint initiative enables customers to securely manage their communications, contacts and schedules and collaborate and network through social software, all from within the familiar, intuitive interface of their BlackBerry smartphones. This includes the general availability of the new BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections, IBM’s social software for business, at a time when eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.
“As the world enters the ‘Era of the Mobile Web’, mobile devices like BlackBerry are outnumbering TV’s, credit cards and PC’s, and are becoming increasingly critical to business operations for companies of all sizes globally,” said Bob Picciano, GM Lotus Software. “Today’s announcement extends the portfolio of IBM’s industry-leading social computing and collaboration offerings available to customers as they increasingly rely on their BlackBerry® smartphones.”
“The organizational and personal benefits of the Lotus collaboration suite together with the mobility and security advantages of the widely-adopted BlackBerry platform provide an unmatched solution for enterprise customers,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion.
IBM and RIM are making the following technologies portable and accessible, anytime and anywhere:
Portals & Dashboards: IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM dashboard software lets businesses build Web sites and single screen dashboard views that deliver information, applications and processes personalized to the individual BlackBerry smartphone user.
Social Networking: The BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections helps people tap into the collective knowledge of others and find the people and information they need for the task at hand while on the go.
Messaging and Calendaring: BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino enables access to key email and calendaring functions as well as custom applications built with Lotus Domino.
Unified Communications: The BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Sametime lets people access their full buddy list, send and receive instant messages, view presence information and convert an IM session to a phone call with a simple click.
Business Intelligence: IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile business intelligence software is the industry’s first business intelligence solution designed specifically for the BlackBerry platform. It provides personalized secure business information in the right context to allow people to view and interact with dashboard-style reports to make informed decisions while they are on the move.
The BlackBerry platform is the only mobile enterprise solution to provide mobile access to all major Lotus collaboration solutions today. The proven, market-leading BlackBerry platform enhances the mobile experience for these solutions by enabling the following capabilities:
Automated Data Delivery and Synchronization - The push-based architecture of BlackBerry® Enterprise Server automates data delivery and synchronization, enabling timely alerts and notifications within Lotus applications on BlackBerry smartphones.
Easy Deployment - The mobile device management capabilities of BlackBerry Enterprise Server allow IT groups to centrally manage and wirelessly deploy BlackBerry client software for Lotus applications.
Market-Leading Enterprise-Class Security - The BlackBerry platform is based on a proven security architecture that helps ensure the confidentiality and integrity of wirelessly transmitted information between backend servers and BlackBerry smartphones. With support for more than 400 over-the-air wireless IT policies and commands that enable IT administrators to wirelessly enforce security settings, BlackBerry Enterprise Server meets even the most stringent IT requirements.
Businesses from around the world are already turning to IBM and RIM to help them take collaboration on the road. Financial services giant MetLife is among them.
“Lotus Notes on BlackBerry is used to connect diverse groups at MetLife, including sales and administration,” said Tony Arroyo, IT Manager, MetLife, New York. “Soon we will move forward with Sametime. There is also interest in the advanced collaboration tools within Lotus Notes 8.”
Standard Life PLC, a global financial services firm based in the United Kingdom with 7 million customers, has over 1,100 employees using BlackBerry smartphones and 10,000 employees using Lotus Notes to collaborate and access the corporate intranet, teamrooms and emergency contact lists.
“Lotus software on BlackBerry is critical to our business as it allows Standard Life to enable better collaboration across the world at any time,” said William Campbell, Desktop Services Manager, Standard Life, who is also presenting at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium this week. “We have taken BlackBerry way beyond email, adding a high level of rich functionality resulting in what one of our users calls ‘the laptop in your pocket.’”
Johnson Controls, Inc., based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has 140,000 employees specializing in the design, manufacturing, and installation of automotive systems and non-residential climate control systems. The company provides automotive batteries and all parts of the interior systems in cars and light trucks. Reliance on Lotus Notes via BlackBerry smartphones has grown and now Johnson Controls is moving ahead with Lotus Notes 8.01 with BlackBerry.
Some of the world’s most discriminating technology experts work for the Aerospace Corporation, headquartered in El Segundo, California. Aerospace Corp. employees access Lotus Notes & Domino on their BlackBerry smartphones as they provide independent technical and scientific research, development, and advisory services to national-security space programs and major projects for the United States Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, commercial companies, and leading universities.
The BlackBerry mobile solution for the Lotus collaboration software suite is available today and is being showcased this week at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) 2008 in Orlando. The BlackBerry client software for Lotus Sametime and Lotus Connections are both now available as a free download for Lotus customers at www.blackberry.com/go/ibmresources.
IBM Expands Managed Wireless Services for BlackBerry
-IBM and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX:RIM) today announced IBM’s new hosting capabilities to support the BlackBerry platform. IBM has also joined the BlackBerry System Integrator (SI) Alliance Program.
IBM will expand its portfolio of Managed Wireless Services for the BlackBerry platform, leveraging its already successful services offering that currently hosts more than 100,000 enterprise end users globally. The offering builds upon the strength of the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server product line with a far-reaching suite of services that include hosting, consulting, systems integration, and deployment of enterprise applications on the converged platform.
Ownership of wireless services in the enterprise has shifted from Procurement to the CIO. Like corporate data and telephony, the BlackBerry platform is considered by many to be fundamental to their business operations. Large organizations look to outsource these services so they can focus on their core competencies. Meanwhile, demand increases for innovative technology and infrastructure to help support the mobile Web, as wireless devices now outnumber landlines. IBM predicts more than one billion mobile Web users by 2011.
“We find that our enterprise clients increasingly need to extend wireless data capabilities beyond e-mail, and to leverage their enterprise investment on wireless device platforms,” said Gary Cohen, IBM’s General Manager, Global Communications Sector. “IBM’s services will facilitate the deployment and ongoing management of enterprise applications on the BlackBerry platform. We are uniquely well-equipped to enable our enterprise customers to do so on a large scale. As the world’s leading IT services provider we are very pleased to be offering these services and to be working with RIM, an outstanding innovative leader in the wireless data marketplace.”
“In today’s business world, BlackBerry is as essential to our organization as network connectivity, phone and e-mail. At Fluor, we count on BlackBerry to speed our decision making, help solve problems and improve execution,” said Ray Barnard, VP and CIO, Fluor Corporation. “We count on IBM to deliver this essential service and to collaborate with our business partners to innovate on new mobile applications that further our competitive advantage.”
“RIM is excited to support the expansion of IBM’s Managed Wireless Services for the BlackBerry platform,” said Jeff McDowell, Vice President, Global Alliances at Research In Motion. “RIM believes IBM’s hosted services will help extend the reach of the BlackBerry platform globally and will help customers realize the full value of enterprise mobility.”
Managing customers’ wireless applications in an increasingly mobile-centric world is a key focus of the new alliance between IBM and RIM. IBM now offers access to the full line of Web 2.0-powered Lotus collaboration and information on demand software on the market-leading BlackBerry platform.