HP and RIM push Blackberry into the enterprise

HP is working with Research In Motion (RIM) to deliver a portfolio of business mobility products for enterprise users based on the BlackBerry platform.

The two companies will work on providing BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 to businesses. This enables Blackberry users to send and receive e-mail from their devices. The two companies said they would focus on increasing service levels, reducing operations costs and improving productivity for customers.

Ann Livermore, executive vice-president at the Technology Solutions Group of HP said: "Emerging models of communications and collaboration have created an opportunity for RIM and HP to provide service-based mobile solutions that deliver value to customers."

Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive officer at Research In Motion, said businesses will be offered a set of applications and services for the BlackBerry smartphone.

HP also is introducing software to centrally monitor and manage BlackBerry devices, servers and applications, including the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software, mail servers, databases, Microsoft Active Directory and server operating systems such as Windows Server. Plans also include extending the capabilities of the monitoring product support management of enterprise applications running on the BlackBerry platform.