An IBM Lotus and RIM collaboration software is on its way for RIM's popular BlackBerry smartphones. This is considered to be an attempt on the part of the two companies to take on the tech giants Microsoft and Google in the SaaS domain. IBM Corp. has made an announcement to this regard.

Speaking at a press conference at Lotusphere, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said the work the two companies are undertaking marked "a quantum jump" in combining mobile communications with multimedia software.

In the second quarter BlackBerry users will be able to produce documents using the Lotus Symphony personal productivity applications. Spreadsheets and presentations will follow soon. By mid-year the clients would also be able to use the Lotus Connections social networking application that will give BlackBerry owners access to activities, communities and blogs.

In addition, the web-based service, known as "LotusLive", will enable users to set up networks between business partners and social networking services for business modules.

The companies are also developing a software based on the Lotus Quickr 2.0 content management application. This service would enable BlackBerry users find, access and share Quickr-product content such as documents, videos and photos. The companies are also developing BlackBerry support for the IBM Lotus Domino Designer and XPages development tools. This would make it easier for developers to build smartphone software. Both the softwares would be available in the second half of 2009.