New Mobile Web Solution Brings Social Networking, Enterprise Collaboration and Information on Demand to BlackBerry Smartphones

The joint initiative enables customers to securely manage theircommunications, contacts and schedules and collaborate and network throughsocial software, all from within the familiar, intuitive interface of theirBlackBerry smartphones. This includes the general availability of the newBlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections, IBM's social software forbusiness, at a time when eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networkingwill grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by2012.

This year, for the first time, more people in the world will have a mobiledevice than a landline telephone. IBM's Institute for Business Valuepredicts one billion mobile Web users by 2011 and a significant shift inthe way the majority of people will interact with the Web over the nextdecade.

"As the world enters the 'Era of the Mobile Web,' mobile devices likeBlackBerry are outnumbering TVs, credit cards and PCs, and are becomingincreasingly critical to business operations for companies of all sizesglobally," said Bob Picciano, GM Lotus Software. "Today's announcementextends the portfolio of IBM's industry-leading social computing andcollaboration offerings available to customers as they increasingly rely ontheir BlackBerry® smartphones."

"The organizational and personal benefits of the Lotus collaboration suitetogether with the mobility and security advantages of the widely-adoptedBlackBerry platform provide an unmatched solution for enterprisecustomers," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

IBM and RIM are making the following technologies portable and accessible,anytime and anywhere:

--  Portals & Dashboards: IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM dashboard software    lets businesses build Web sites and single screen dashboard views that    deliver information, applications and processes personalized to the    individual BlackBerry smartphone user.
--  Social Networking: The BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections    helps people tap into the collective knowledge of others and find the    people and information they need for the task at hand while on the go.
--  Messaging and Calendaring: BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM    Lotus Notes and Domino enables access to key email and calendaring    functions as well as custom applications built with Lotus Domino.
--  Unified Communications: The BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Sametime    lets people access their full buddy list, send and receive instant    messages, view presence information and convert an IM session to a phone    call with a simple click.
--  Business Intelligence: IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile business intelligence    software is the industry's first business intelligence solution designed    specifically for the BlackBerry platform. It provides personalized secure    business information in the right context to allow people to view and    interact with dashboard-style reports to make informed decisions while they    are on the move.    

The BlackBerry platform is the only mobile enterprise solution to providemobile access to all major Lotus collaboration solutions today.