HP, RIM announce strategic BlackBerry alliance

PALO ALTO, USA: HP and Research In Motion (RIM) announced they are establishing a strategic alliance to deliver a portfolio of solutions for business mobility on the BlackBerry platform.

The solutions, which include support for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0, are focused on increasing service levels, reducing operations costs and improving productivity for customers.

HP and RIM plan to design and launch offerings to increase the productivity levels of the growing number of global mobile employees, enabling businesses to extend the return on their investments in mobility.

“As businesses look for new ways to increase service levels, reduce operational costs and improve productivity, they can meet these challenges by transforming how they manage the infrastructure that powers their mobile workforces,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP. “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.”

“RIM and HP are working together to deliver solutions to customers that weave mobility into their daily operations – from innovative new services in the cloud to managed mobile services for the enterprise,” said Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive officer, Research In Motion. “Through our collaboration with HP, businesses will have access to an expanded set of applications and services for their BlackBerry smartphone deployments.”

At this year’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) in Orlando, Fla., HP will be demonstrating two new solutions -– HP CloudPrint for BlackBerry smartphones and HP Operations Manager for BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

HP CloudPrint for BlackBerry Smartphones
HP CloudPrint for BlackBerry smartphones is a web services based solution that allows users to print emails, documents, photos and web pages using a BlackBerry smartphone, wherever they are -– in the office, at home or on the road.

The CloudPrint service enables mobile users to easily print to the nearest printer. The service is printer-agnostic and driverless and requires simple Internet access. HP and RIM plan to make CloudPrint available to BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers as well as BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers.

The CloudPrint technology was invented by HP Labs, the company’s central research arm.

HP Operations Manager for BlackBerry Enterprise Server
HP also is introducing software to centrally monitor and manage the extended BlackBerry solution ecosystem, whether it is virtual or physical. This ecosystem includes 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 solution to provide an end to end view of enterprise applications running on the BlackBerry platform.

HP Operations Manager for BlackBerry Enterprise Server correlates events from each part of the mobile ecosystem to help customers pinpoint potential issues and take corrective actions to remediate them.

This single console reduces costs associated with monitoring multiple consoles and provides customers with a consolidated view into events, enabling them to manage performance and deliver optimal service levels for BlackBerry messaging services.

In addition, HP delivers services and products to optimize customers’ mobility infrastructures:

Managed BlackBerry Services
Managed BlackBerry Services, part of EDS Mobile Workplace Services, allow organizations to outsource the management of their BlackBerry smartphone deployments so they can focus on their core businesses. The services are designed to integrate the mobility ecosystems for large enterprises, whether they are hosted in EDS’ data centers or in a client’s own environment.

Currently, EDS manages close to 500,000 BlackBerry smartphones for clients.
HP ProLiant servers trusted to run BlackBerry Enterprise Server

HP’s enterprise customers can use HP ProLiant servers to run BlackBerry Enterprise Server software. The latest generation of HP ProLiant G6 servers brings together the best HP innovations in energy efficiency, virtualization and services to enable large and small customers to do more with less. HP redefines server economics to deliver double the performance of previous generations, enabling customers to get more value out of every IT dollar.

Shane Robison, HP executive vice president and chief strategy and technology officer, will deliver a keynote address at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2009 in Orlando, Fla., on May 6.