SAP and Research In Motion (RIM) have unveiled a mobile
customer relationship management (CRM) application for the
Blackberry.
The SAP CRM application uses the Blackberry smartphone
applications, including e-mail, address book and calendar
applications, to deliver mobile CRM for salespeople.
Analyst IDC has estimated that a mobile salesforce using SAP
CRM with Blackberry could improve efficiency by 80%.
As part of the work delivered through the partnership, RIM plans
to expand its framework for building workflow-enabled mobile
applications for the Blackberry platform. The framework will serve
as the basis for developing mobile applications for other
applications in the SAP Business Suite, RIM said.
The partnerships aims to allow Blackberry users to access
information on the go. The two companies have developed Automated
Data Synchronization technology, which uses the push-based
architecture of Blackberry Enterprise Server to automate data
synchronisation between business systems and mobile applications,
when a network connection is unavailable.
Through the partnership, SAP said it is able to use the mobile
device management capabilities of Blackberry Enterprise Server to
enable IT groups to centrally manage and wirelessly deploy mobile
applications to Blackberry smartphones.