IBM and Research In Motion will be offering new Lotus collaboration software and
developer tools on the BlackBerry platform. New features will
help customers find expertise, form teams,
share information, and stay in touch in
real time making them more effective and productive while on the move.
The new capabilities in Lotusphere include:
-
Mobile access to open document format-based IBM Lotus Symphony documents -- and later
presentations and spreadsheet. -
IBM Lotus Quickr Web 2.0-based team
software to help individuals find, access,
share and work with business content such
as documents, photos, and videos on their BlackBerry smartphones. -
Enhanced IBM Lotus Connections
functionality for access to activities, blogs,
and communities in order to augment the
access already available to profiles and tags.
"Team collaboration shouldn't stall when employees are
on the road or away from their desks," said Jim Balsillie,
co-CEO, Research In Motion. "RIM and IBM are strengthening the
BlackBerry platform for Lotus with a
portfolio of mobile office productivity and
collaboration capabilities that will make
BlackBerry smartphones even more effective in
mobilizing businesses around the globe."
IBM and RIM will also preview something new for developers --
BlackBerry platform support for IBM
Lotus Domino Designer and XPages. The BlackBerry Java Development
Environment (BlackBerry JDE) for Eclipse plugs into IBM
Lotus Domino Designer, making it easier to develop new software
applications for BlackBerry smartphones.
BlackBerry platform support for XPages enables
developers to write a rich application once for both Web and secure use on
BlackBerry smartphones.
IBM and RIM are rolling out these features
and tools for BlackBerry smartphones in the
coming months: Lotus Symphony document viewing
and the new capabilities for Lotus
Connections will be available in the second
quarter; and the Lotus Quickr team room
and Designer offerings are planned for
availability in the second half of 2009.
Additionally, IBM Lotus Notes and Domino and IBM Lotus Sametime unified
communications and collaboration software, which
has worked on the BlackBerry platform for
several years, is now also compatible with the BlackBerry Storm
smartphone. The companies recently made a new presence and
awareness-everywhere feature available on the
Blackberry. This is made possible by the new BlackBerry Client for
Lotus Sametime which provides smartphone
customers with real time communications
capabilities throughout the smartphone's applications.