IBM Lotus and Research in Motion announced yesterday at Lotusphere their new collaboration through which BlackBerry users will soon be provided with several new applications.

The two companies will offer Lotus collaboration software and development tools for the popular BlackBerry devices, but for now, the release date has not been announced.

RIM’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie stated that the two companies’ work marks a quantum jump when it comes to combining mobile communications with multimedia software. BlackBerry users will also gain access to a series of documents produced with the help of the Lotus Symphony personal productivity applications. There will also be included support for spreadsheets and presentations. Another add-on is the Lotus Connections social networking application, which will provide access to all sorts of activities, communities and blogs.

The collaboration includes the development of a special software based on the Lotus Quickr 2.0 content management application, which will enable users to find, access and share Quickr-product content, including photos, documents and videos. This software, accompanied by the BlackBerry support for the IBM Lotus Domino Designer and XPages development tools, which will make it easier for developers to build smartphone software, will be available later in 2009. The release date will be announced over the next few months.

Balsillie also mentioned that BlackBerry smartphones will support Lotus Domino 8.5, which is the latest release of the Lotus collaboration and communication platform.

"Our customers and our reseller network expressed strong interest for Lotus Notes compatibility and we have responded quickly with this new release," explained Dennis Dion, Vice President of Sales, adding that "There is no better place than Lotusphere 2009 to make this announcement and our presence here will allow us to meet face-to-face with our target audience."