BOSTON, May 2 (Reuters) – Research in Motion Ltd (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research)is working with SAP AG (SAPG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) to develop sales managementsoftware and other business programs for the Blackberry,seeking to expand the device beyond an e-mail and phoneservice.
The first programs are designed to help companies sendsales leads to their staff in real time, then provide tools tolet employees follow up on them, the two companies said onFriday. The software will be available within several weeks.
SAP, the biggest maker of business management software,designed the customer relationship management (CRM) system andRIM engineers developed tools that allow it to be fullyintegrated with the BlackBerry’s own e-mail system, contactdatabase and other programs.
RIM’s BlackBerry competes with Palm Inc’s (PALM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Treo andsmart phones using Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) software. Its newestrival, Apple Inc.’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iPhone, is gradually gainingtraction among business users.
Many companies, including SAP, already tweak their businessprograms to run on mobile devices, but RIM Co-Chief ExecutiveJim Balsillie said that such software has never been so tightlyintegrated with the BlackBerry device and network.
"Literally a person can do their work on BlackBerry withouthaving to go back and forth between a laptop and a BlackBerry,"he said during a conference call with media.
Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said that ability givesRIM an opportunity to leverage its large market share and "ahuge competitive advantage" over rivals.
Besides the customer relationship management software, RIMalso plans to work with Blackberry to develop a wide variety ofprograms for the platform.
"They are early to the game. No one else does this in thewireless market," Misek said. This expands their market, hesaid, giving them an opportunity to help deliver businessmanagement software.
RIM also left the door open for developing similar productswith other software makers.
"Doing exclusivity doesn’t help either company because allit does is limit the benefits to customers," Balsillie said.(Additional reporting by Wojtek Dabrowski; Editing by BrianMoss)
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