BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM, RIM.T) will give its corporate customers an opportunity to shift back-office management of email traffic and other BlackBerry services off-site, in a move that it says will save customers money, speed the rollout of BlackBerry services and enhance security at a time when more and more employees use smart phones for corporate and personal use.
The initiative comes as RIM readies the launch of its PlayBook tablet, a major product launch that will vault RIM into the tablet-computer market to compete against Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPad.
It also comes as RIM's corporate subscriber base faces an unprecedented attack from Apple's iPhone and iPad juggernauts, as well as a phalanx of smart phones that run on Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android-operating system.
The move will be carried out in close conjunction with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which in October announced a major, so-called cloud-service initiative of its own, called Microsoft Office 365. As part of that initiative, companies that use Microsoft Exchange Server, which stores email, contact and calendar information, among other things, can move their Exchange servers to off-site data centers. The initiative is still in the testing phase but is expected to go live in a matter of months.
"We're embracing it in a big way, and we're going out jointly with Microsoft to all of our customers," said Jim Tobin, senior vice president of RIM's software and business services unit, in an interview.
The partnership with Microsoft involves formal cooperation on a go-to-market strategy, technology and business model, Mr. Tobin said.
Currently, most corporate BlackBerry customers maintain one or more BlackBerry Enterprise Servers on company premises. The servers allow a company's IT personnel to provision BlackBerrys, and manage an array of services and features, such as calendar and contact updates and video services, among other things.
Companies will now have the option to move this back-office infrastructure to off-site data centers and manage services remotely. RIM and Microsoft won't jointly manage off-site data centers, but Microsoft centers will connect "cloud to cloud" to RIM centers that house BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, Mr. Tobin said.
RIM's "cloud" initiative offers a number of advantages to customers, including "substantial" cost savings, as the cloud services will be less expensive than purchasing and maintaining BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, Mr. Tobin said. As well the cloud service offers increased efficiency, as back-office adjustments and changes that are currently handled in-house will be implemented at RIM's off-site data centers, he said.
Finally, the data centers will be optimally positioned to ensure devices are secure at a time when many people are using a single smart phone for work and personal use, Tobin said. "In our view, the best way to deliver protection is to aggregate security capabilities...into an area where we can provide rigorous security management," he said.
Mr. Tobin said he believes as many as 20%-25% of RIM's BlackBerry subscriber base will be using cloud services of one type or another by the end of the year. RIM, which reports its fiscal fourth-quarter results March 24, had more than 55 million subscribers at the end of its third quarter on Nov. 27.
Mr. Tobin said RIM has effectively been in the cloud-computing business for years, managing data centers around the globe that route millions of emails sent to and from the BlackBerry every day. This gives it an advantage versus its competitors, as does the Blackberry's reputation as the gold-standard for device security, he said.
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