According to their press release, Research In Motion (RIM) will let developers create applications for BlackBerry phones using Microsoft’s .NET programming environment.

The ability will come in the form of a plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio that lets developers to write application that integrate with existing back-end servers through .NET Web Services, according to RIM. It will work through the existing BlackBerry Mobile Data Service that is an integral part of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)

If you recall, RIM uses a NOC-centered approach in which data between BES and BlackBerry devices will flow through. The BES, which resides at its ideal location behind the corporate firewall, makes an outward connection to the NOC. Initially, this connection was only used to carry BlackBerry data specific to its core functionality such as e-mail and calendaring information.

MDS was created to allow 3rd party enterprise integration, utilizing the BES as a conduit to pipe data between the applications residing on the BlackBerry with the application server located on the corporate network. MDS has since been incorporated with the likes of SAP AG as well as a whole slew of enterprise-centric applications.

The strength of Microsoft - other than its huge installed-base, has always been its extremely usable development tools as well as its extensive documentation. Hence providing a development environment as a free plug-in on top of one of the world’s top few IDE can only be an extremely smart move.

Additionally, by leveraging upon its existing data-carrying capability, the BlackBerry is now one move ahead of competing offerings by competitor platforms such as Windows Mobile. Sure, Window Mobile does feature extremely slick drag-and-drop integration with SQL Servers, especially in WM 5.0 onwards. However, deployment of the actual applications is still a hassle as well as the necessity of manually configuring firewall configurations.

Anyway, I believe this represents a fundamental shift in RIM from presenting the hugely successful BlackBerry as an exclusive, completely proprietary platform to that of an “experience”. As such, it is not longer shying away from initiatives such as running on 3rd party platforms - see BlackBerry To Run on Windows Mobile 6.0!. Because its architecture is NOC-based, there is recurring monthly fees that makes this model not only sustainable, but very profitable.

Where just 6 to 8 months ago I would have delegated RIM to be in a position where it will just gradually “fade into the sunset”, I must now say that these recently strategic moves will likely see it going strong for a long time yet.

RIM will be making the plug-in for Visual Studio available for free later this year.

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