HP and RIM Announce Strategic Alliance to Mobilize Business on BlackBerry

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 4, 2009

HP and Research In Motion (RIM)(Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced they are establishing a strategic alliance to deliver a portfolio of solutions for business mobility on the BlackBerry® platform.

HP CloudPrint for BlackBerry Smartphones

HP CloudPrint for BlackBerry smartphones is a web services based solution that allows users to print emails, documents, photos and web pages using a BlackBerry smartphone, wherever they are – in the office, at home or on the road.

The CloudPrint service enables mobile users to easily print to the nearest printer. The service is printer-agnostic and driverless and requires simple Internet access. HP and RIM plan to make CloudPrint available to BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers as well as BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers.

The CloudPrint technology was invented by HP Labs, the company’s central research arm.

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In addition to the CloudPrint technology, HP's EDS Mobile Services will be available to help manage Blackberry's - they currently managed 500,000 Blackberry's.

And HP's Proliant servers are being pitched to support corporate Blackberry applications and HP's Operations Manager for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, is a software solution that helps centrally manage and monitor the entire Blackberry ecosystem, whether it is virtual or physical - servers, applications, mail servers, databases, etc.

It looks like a complete HP/Blackberry, business system.

Friday is FunDay: Optimus Prime, this had to be done.

What you are about to see is Top Secret...Do not tell my mother...

OfficeMax: ***CORRECTION*** I DO Remember Seeing Someone From OfficeMax at the Managed Print Services Conference

****** CORRECTION ********

David Peterson, Director of Sales, OfficeMax was in attendance at the MPS Conference, and I did speak with them - my apologies!

So, what can be determined by this?

OfficeMax gets it.

They get the whole MPS approach and are leveraging their customer relationships. And not only with MPS but also as a MSP.

Lawton Smith and Darrell Amy's discussion resonates once more - the advance MPS providers are ready to hop-scotch over to the MSP role.

And now, I need to wipe the egg off my face.

During the OfficeMax earnings call today, Sam Martin – Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer regarding Managed Print Services said, "...The idea is to collaborate with customers and maximize their office supply savings with OfficeMax through analytics.

This value proposition then opens the door to approach the customer with related spend categories as well as non-traditional areas in which we have expertise such as managed print and data center services..."

Furthermore, Martin adds, "...We believe that a deeper business relationship results in better retention...Our relationship with Young has evolved from basic office supplies procurement into a broader solution which includes managed print services.

Print is not a core activity for Young and they viewed OfficeMax as having a best-in-class solution that met their needs.

Other categories where OfficeMax has expanded its relationship with Young include certain data center services and other supply categories not originally priced with OfficeMax. Currently less than half of our business with the Young brand is traditional office supply procurement..."
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On the OfficeMax Managed Print Services website, they use phrases like "scalable end to end solutions" and "...across all manufacturers...". On the site, they even say, "...We'll help manage all your print and multi-function machine supplies and coordinate the installation, servicing and redeployment of your hardware..."

In one session at the MPS Conference, Lawton Smith explained how Managed Print Services will one day soon be enveloped into the Managed Services Provider's portfolio of services.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, OfficeMax is pitching just that.

***** CORRECTION ********

OfficeMax was in attendance at the MPS Conference - my apologies!

The complete transcript here.