RIM teams up with Microsoft to kickstart cloud effort

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd. is on the verge of releasing the PlayBook and has struck a deal with Microsoft Corp. to handle what it expects will be a growing amount of data storage needed in the cloud.
By the time RIM releases its first tablet it will already face steep competition from Apple Inc., which began selling the second-generation iPad last week. RIM’s stronghold in the enterprise is being disrupted, especially in the face of Apple’s claim that at least 65 of the Fortune 100 companies have already deployed or at least tested the iPad.
Jim Tobin, SVP of software and business services at RIM, told Bloomberg and other media outlets that he expects around 25% of RIM’s large corporate customers to shift data to the cloud by the end of this year, and as many as half may be doing so in 2012. The deal with Microsoft is an effort to make that shift more seamless for customers. “It’s a more efficient model for everyone,” Tobin told Bloomberg, adding that greater smart phone and tablet adoption is what will motivate the move away from locally stored information.
Without giving too much detail about what the new offering from RIM might look like, Tobin said the cloud-based services will be the equivalent to what RIM offers customers via on-site servers. However, it will be integrated with Microsoft’s Office 365 as well.
For the time being, RIM doesn’t have plans to offer enterprise services to devices outside the BlackBerry family, but Tobin didn’t dismiss the possibility outright. “We have the physical capacity to handle cloud services,” Tobin told Reuters. Indeed, RIM’s existing data centers handle about 15 million gigabytes of BlackBerry traffic every month, he said.