SAP AG and Research In Motion (RIM) have announced a co-innovation partnership to enable all mobile users to access SAP enterprise applications through the BlackBerry platform, thus giving them the liberty to perform their jobs without being tethered to their desktops or offices. SAP and RIM have joined forces to change the way people work, by enabling anytime, anywhere mobile access to SAP enterprise applications. This new initiative by SAP and RIM will bring the power and productivity of SAP enterprise applications to the BlackBerry platform in a robust and user-friendly manner.

The first output expected from this new partnership is a native BlackBerry smartphone client that will merge the power of the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application with core BlackBerry smartphone applications, including the BlackBerry email, address book and calendar applications, to deliver an indispensable tool for sales people. The new mobile SAP CRM application will leverage the inherent security, management capabilities and efficiency of the BlackBerry platform. Organisations that already have the SAP CRM and the BlackBerry solutions deployed will require only basic user training and minimal incremental IT infrastructure investments.

"Providing access to and securing broad adoption of enterprise applications with mobile workers has been a pervasive challenge over the years," says Mary Wardley, vice president, CRM applications, at research firm IDC. "Most existing solutions require users to learn yet another application and navigation paradigm on their devices, and for IT to manage a complex infrastructure to deploy and support. By having a native application on a BlackBerry smartphone that easily extends functionality but retains the native ease of use, users will find it non-intrusive to adopt applications such as CRM. This is an exciting partnership and definitely has the potential to change the game."

"SAP is thrilled to bolster its long-standing relationship with RIM through the co-development of this breakthrough offering," says Bill McDermott, president and CEO, SAP Americas and Asia Pacific Japan. "By combining RIM's expertise for empowering the mobile worker and SAP's strength in business computing, we are embarking on an exciting future to make it easier and more convenient for today's business users to perform their jobs. Our extended partnership with RIM will open many new doors for mobile workers around the world who require real-time mobile access to enterprise applications in a secure setting."

"In concert with SAP, we are bringing the unique benefits of the BlackBerry platform to SAP applications, providing organisations with the security, manageability, efficiency and 'push' capabilities of the BlackBerry platform with a dedicated client application that also integrates with core BlackBerry applications," says Jim Balsillie, co-CEO, Research In Motion. "Our partnership with SAP will allow us to deliver an unparalleled solution to our mutual customers who demand the very best in enterprise mobility. With this new partnership, we have an excellent opportunity to further entrench BlackBerry as the leading mobile connectivity platform for enterprise information access. The vision that users can have access to SAP's enterprise computing applications from virtually anywhere, anytime, represents a new era of opportunity."