Company announces lower cost, per-user subscription based for BlackBerry mobile. 

IBM has announced new subscription-based managed services and support for the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution to help organizations around the world benefit from mobile access to information and resources.

The newly unveiled IBM Mobile Enterprise Services for the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution is a flexible, comprehensive managed service designed to simplify management, technical support and cost of a client's BlackBerry deployment while making it easier for them to scale the solution to meet their business demands. The service consolidates the technical, administrative, licensing and support costs of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution with pricing on a monthly, per-user basis. The new subscription-based pricing model is designed to help organizations better project and budget mobility costs and minimize their upfront investment.

The new managed service offering will be provided by IBM professionals certified through the BlackBerry Certification Program.

IBM is working with AstraZeneca, a leading international pharmaceuticals company, to improve mobile access to corporate resources and information for its global workforce with the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution. By using IBM for the management of their BlackBerry solution, AstraZeneca is able to seamlessly scale mobility and increase productivity through one consistent global solution and provider.

"Giving employees mobile access to information allows for greater productivity, better collaboration, and faster decision-making, which are all critical to the success of our business," said Jeff Walker, Executive Director, IT Services at AstraZeneca.

"Mobile access is vital, and enterprises are challenged by rapidly expanding requirements from workers across all lines of business," said Dan Papes, vice president of IBM Mobile Enterprise Services. "To unleash mobile access, IBM Mobile Enterprise Services for the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution offers a flexible set of services to complement a client's existing IT and security strategies and provides a predictable cost structure that allows clients to focus on their core business while leaving the deployment, management and support requirements of a mobility solution to IBM."

As part of their existing global alliance, IBM and Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) offer integrated solutions with support and services that make enterprise mobility more accessible to more organizations. The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution supported by IBM can help organizations work smarter by allowing easy reach to enterprise data, such as business intelligence, email, collaboration software and other enterprise applications in the "connected business environment."

"Customers today are facing greater competitive pressures to empower their mobile workforce with secure and effective access to information," said Jeff McDowell, Vice President, Global Alliances at RIM. "IBM is uniquely positioned to help organizations maximize their mobile investments through this new managed services offering."