Lotusphere: IBM and RIM bring Lotus to the BlackBerry

Lotusphere 2009 coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the BlackBerry launch

BlackBerry users will soon be able to access Lotus collaboration software and developer tools on their smartphones, IBM announced at its Lotusphere 2009 conference in Orlando.

The partnership between IBM and Research In Motion (RIM) will give customers mobile access to a range of Lotus software, including Symphony documents, Quickr content sharing capabilities, and Connections blogs and communities.

IBM said that the tools will be available for the BlackBerry from the second quarter of 2009.

"The new Lotus collaboration features and developer tools on the BlackBerry platform will deliver productivity beyond the office, extending IBM software and services so that individuals can access all the resources they need to keep their business moving, anytime, anywhere," said IBM Lotus software general manager Bob Picciano.

He added that the BlackBerry platform would soon have extended support for Lotus Symphony to include presentations and spreadsheets.

A BlackBerry Java Development Environment for Eclipse, meanwhile, will ease the process of developing new applications for the BlackBerry, according to RIM co-chief executive Jim Balsillie.

BlackBerry support for XPages will allow developers to write a single rich application that will work on the web and BlackBerry smartphones, he added.

The BlackBerry Storm will offer support for Lotus Notes and Domino email, along with the Sametime unified communications and collaboration software that has worked on the BlackBerry platform for several years.

The extended RIM-IBM partnership announcements coincided with the 10-year anniversary of the BlackBerry launch.