Cloud computing based solutions continue to be an increasingly important part of IT strategies. Regardless of where your organization is at today, they’ll want to start thinking about their migration plans and taking time to work out a robust transition schedule that minimizes any business disruptions. Additionally when you think about email and other facets of the Microsoft Office 365 suite, consider the non-communication uses of email. Many companies use email for invoice routing, updating CRM systems through formatted shortcodes, and the like. What are those business needs? How will they be impacted? How could these workflows benefit, not only from a cloud based alternative, but also from being made mobile?

Now, if you’re a customer on a pre-existing Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) solution, BlackBerry smartphones will continue to be supported for existing BPOS Customers until you transition to Microsoft Office 365. You can continue using your BlackBerry devices with existing Microsoft service for Exchange Online with no discontinuation of service until your transition. The previous $10/month fee was removed in March, so connecting your BlackBerry device to your Microsoft solution is free!

For new Microsoft Office 365 customers, simply sign up for a trial or full subscription of Microsoft Office 365 and you will have the option to add BlackBerry smartphone connectivity through the BlackBerry Business Cloud Service offering within the Microsoft Office 365 portal. Once you have agreed to the BlackBerry Cloud Service Terms and Conditions you will be able to provision and manage BlackBerry smartphones within your organization.

We encourage you to take advantage of this offer and register your organization for the BlackBerry Business Cloud Service Beta. This program will allow organizations to get a feel for the service offering and see how it fits with their business needs. Not only will this help to put you ahead of your peers, but the feedback you provide will help us continue to improve the product and ensure it meets your specific needs moving forward.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started with your organization’s Beta now!

A large part of cloud is about the mobile web experience and being able to access information and services online, without requiring an application to reside locally anywhere – bringing with it true agnostic access (as in, you can access it regardless of what you are using as long as your browser supports all of the standard web goodies).

There are lots of great business/productivity type services out there available as mobile web options. With the mobile web you can, and probably already do, manage your finances through online banking or online trades, check the status of an eBay® auction or your Etsy site, upload an image to these sites or upload a video to YouTube®, all through your BlackBerry® smartphone or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.

I have also heard from small business owners that the mobile web and their BlackBerry device allow for seamless operation between their marketing efforts and customer responsiveness through services like Facebook® or Twitter® regardless of where they are. Some businesses have taken this one step further by integrating their blog into the mix. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet allows them to capture a picture or video of what they want to illustrate in their post; they log into the blog admin account, write the post, and then upload to their blog all from the same piece of hardware. Or additionally, keep the blog service open and take additional photos for uploading or editing as required – ah, true multitasking, something all of you small business folks have mastered out of necessity. Things like Wi-Fi® access while on the road and the ability to view and interact with services like Google® Analytics really allow you to take advantage of the mobile web.

[Karl Allen-Muncy, CuteGecko Inc.]

We were really excited to hear about this small business on the road during the summer – so we hooked them up with a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet so they could stay on top of their business while taking a little break from office life! Here is the story of how they are using their new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to keep working and engaging with customers/community while travelling across the country.

Which mobile web services do you use in your business? Do you have a preference for apps over mobile web, or does it depend on what the task is?

Previous Posts in the Series:

• SMB Cloud Series #1: “Cloud Storage” for Your Small Business

This product has been in the works for some time. Earlier this year, we announced an agreement with Microsoft to develop a cloud-based service to deliver Microsoft Office 365 content to BlackBerry smartphones. Following up on that, we shared our overall cloud strategy with customers throughout BlackBerry World™ 2011. And over the past several months, we’ve been fortunate to work with a number of customers who participated in an early access program to help us develop our BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 product – a major milestone in delivering cloud benefits for our customers!

BlackBerry Business Cloud Services is designed to deliver a simple and affordable way for companies to manage BlackBerry smartphones with Microsoft Office 365. Available at no additional charge to Microsoft Office 365 subscribers, this secure service, hosted by Research In Motion® (RIM®), is designed to directly link Microsoft® Exchange Online with BlackBerry smartphones to offer reliable, mobile access to synchronized email, calendar, contacts, tasks and memo pads.

While end users will see this as a great mobile solution for accessing their business information when on the go, from an IT perspective, there’s a lot more going on under the covers. As part of an overall BlackBerry solution, IT organizations can benefit from enterprise-oriented elements including:

• Separation of individual/corporate data: BlackBerry® Balance™ technology is designed to present a unified view of work and personal content on BlackBerry smartphones connected to an organization’s BlackBerry® Enterprise Server or BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express while keeping content separate and secure behind the scenes – minimizing both corporate security and personal privacy issues.
• Easy management: IT administrators have access to a web-based console to provision, manage and secure BlackBerry smartphones from almost anywhere. The intuitive, web-based interface is designed to provide the tools administrators need to perform common tasks like password reset or to find/lock/wipe lost devices, and so on.
• End user self-service: Individuals have access to online tools for basic self-service functions. Using an integrated single sign-on between Microsoft Office 365 and BlackBerry Business Cloud Services, end users have online self-service options that help make managing devices more efficient, including the ability to reset a device password or remotely lock/wipe a device in the event of loss or theft.
• Evergreen™ software: Since BlackBerry Business Cloud Services are hosted by RIM, they are always up to date. We ensure that you benefit from the latest version of BlackBerry software, eliminating the need for IT to manually execute upgrades. This helps to reduce organizational labor and hardware costs.

Are you on the cloud? Have you accessed any beta products from RIM for your organization? Now’s your chance!