HP and RIM Take BlackBerry to the CloudsHP and RIM Take BlackBerry to the Clouds

Mobility has become a watchword in small and medium businesses as executives now spend much of their day away from the corporate office. Cloud computing has become a popular way of delivering various types of IT services. Consequently, one of the industrys leading smartphone vendors has teamed up with one of the markets top service providers to deliver cloud based, mobility services.HP and RIM developed two services and an outsourcing option for corporations relying on RIMs smartphones. The two cloud services work with BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0. HP CloudPrint for BlackBerry smartphones allows users to print emails, documents, photos and web pages at the nearest printer. Because no print drivers are needed, employees can print at any device with an Internet connection. HP Operations Manager for BlackBerry Enterprise Server monitors mobile connections and pinpoints potential issues. Customers can then take corrective actions to remediate them. In addition, Managed BlackBerry Services, part of EDS Mobile Workplace Services, allows organizations to outsource the management of their BlackBerry smartphones.

The HP/RIM pairing is significant to small and medium businesses for a couple of reasons. The Blackberry has been quite popular among executives, yet many companies are struggling to put the infrastructure in place to manage the devices. HP has emerged as a leading service provider, one capable of managing a companys IT infrastructure. Branching out into cloud based, mobility services represents a logical extension to the firms business and could enhance its reputation among small and medium companies.

The twosome does face some challenges. While the BlackBerry has been popular, it faces intense competition from devices, such as Apples iPhone and Googles Android. Also, some small and medium businesses may not feel comfortable moving management of their mobile applications out from their data centers. Cloud services are emerging, so sound business practices still need to be developed. There is some risk for companies that opt to sign up for the new services, but it does present companies trying to better manage their smartphones with another option.