Orlando, FL –Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2008- IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX:RIM) are taking mobile work far beyond email by delivering to mainstream business professionals the full line of Web 2.0-powered IBM Lotus® collaboration software and information on demand on the market-leading BlackBerry® platform.

The joint initiative enables customers to securely manage their communications, contacts and schedules and collaborate and network through social software, all from within the familiar, intuitive interface of their BlackBerry smartphones. This includes the general availability of the new BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections, IBM’s social software for business, at a time when eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.

This year, for the first time, more people in the world will have a mobile device than a landline telephone. IBM’s Institute for Business Value predicts one billion mobile Web users by 2011 and a significant shift in the way the majority of people will interact with the Web over the next decade.

“As the world enters the ???Era of the Mobile Web’, mobile devices like BlackBerry are outnumbering TV’s, credit cards and PC’s, and are becoming increasingly critical to business operations for companies of all sizes globally,” said Bob Picciano, GM Lotus Software. “Today’s announcement extends the portfolio of IBM’s industry-leading social computing and collaboration offerings available to customers as they increasingly rely on their BlackBerry® smartphones.”

“The organizational and personal benefits of the Lotus collaboration suite together with the mobility and security advantages of the widely-adopted BlackBerry platform provide an unmatched solution for enterprise customers,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion.