IBM and Research In Motion (RIM) are teaming up to more tightly integrate Lotus Domino and the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution. The two companies are working on ways to extend Lotus Domino applications through Web services directly to BlackBerry, and enhancing BlackBerry performance with Lotus Domino. RIM is also offering a BlackBerry Enterprise Server promotion to Lotus Domino or IBM Lotus Sametime customers.

Today’s mobile workforce is larger than ever, and still growing. According to global research firm Strategy Analytics, the wireless e-mail market is expected to top US$10 billion by 2009. In many cases, workers expect to have access to applications beyond basic e-mail and IM -- they want a fully functional traveling workplace.

"Making people more effective and productive in the work they do everyday is critical in the pursuit of profitable business growth," said Mike Rhodin, IBM Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Products general manager. "IBM and RIM offer a powerful combination that can help the over 125 million Lotus Notes and Domino users extend their applications to the edge of the network."

Integrating Web services support in Lotus Domino 7 with BlackBerry development tools promises to make it easier for mobile workers to access, view, and manipulate data from their BlackBerry devices. Web services are the building blocks of a service-oriented architecture (SOA). They treat data and applications as reusable services, so formerly disparate applications can work together. IBM and RIM are helping extend Web services to BlackBerry, bringing mobile access to SOAs and creating new opportunities for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino users to collaborate with colleagues, clients, and partners -- regardless of location.

IBM and SAP users will be able to integrate their application business processes and information with Lotus Domino data on BlackBerry devices, so they can view SAP content in Lotus Notes wherever they happen to be working. For more about IBM Lotus Notes and SAP integration, see http://My.Advisor.com/doc/18024.

IBM and RIM both plan to optimize the performance of BlackBerry Enterprise Server for IBM Lotus Domino, improving efficiency and manageability. The two companies want to bring value to users through features such as the ability to read Lotus Notes encrypted e-mail and support for IBM DB2 software that were incorporated in BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 for IBM Lotus Domino.

RIM is offering IBM Lotus Domino and Sametime customers a no-charge, downloadable, 10-user version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 . The software can support up to 15 users with the purchase of additional client access licenses. You can upgrade it to more than 15 users with the purchase of an electronic unlock key. Click here for more information about this promotion.

"Mobilizing applications for users is the most significant IT catalyst for boosting productivity in the enterprise today," said Jim Balsillie, RIM chairman and Co-CEO. "Working with IBM to provide tighter integration between BlackBerry and Lotus Domino will benefit customers by enabling broader access to business applications."