Microsoft and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) are teaming up today on the public release of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365, a name which surely Microsoft itself had a hand in creating. The new service will allow corporate customers to manage their deployed BlackBerry devices using Exchange Online, the hosted version of Microsoft’s messaging platform.

The addition comes at no extra cost to current subscribers of the Office 365 suite or the standalone Exchange Online offering, and supports any BlackBerry devices, whether on a business or consumer data plan.

Once enabled, the managed BlackBerry smartphones will be able to sync with Microsoft Exchange Online email, calendar and organizer data. BlackBerry Balance, a new technology that helps admins manage the corporate data on the device, while leaving personal data untouched, will also be available with this new offering. I.T. will be able to manage the phones using a web-based console, but employees will have access to self-service tools for password and device resets, remote lock and remote wipe functions.

BlackBerry Business Cloud Services is live now in 50 countries. More info is here.

Partnerships like this are one of the reasons why some mobile industry insiders believe that RIM could be a viable acquisition target for Microsoft. The companies are already working so closely together to integrate their technologies, and both share a similar end user customer base: the enterprise market. Reports that RIM has even engaged in takeover talks with Microsoft emerged in December, but nothing has yet to come of that. Instead, the company’s recent moves like the co-CEO step-down and (misguided) statements from new CEO Thorsten Heins (“I don’t think any drastic change is needed”) imply that company is attempting a turnaround, not putting itself on the auction block. At least for now.

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Red Gate this morning announced that it has acquired Cerebrata, an India-based maker of tools that helps developers build applications that run on Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform. In fact, Cerebrate is not only a Microsoft partner but also one of their BizSpark startups.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we’re told Cerebrata will continue to operate its own website and services, and its development team will be kept in place for the ‘foreseeable future’.

Read more at TechCrunch Europe.

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Microsoft this morning announced that it has closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, a deal that was originally announced back in May.

They even made an infographic to showcase the importance of the deal completion. /sarcasm

Other than that, not much news to report. As previously announced, Skype becomes a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the new unit.

As I wrote back in May:

The $8.5 billion question: did Microsoft overpay for Skype?

Perhaps, perhaps not. Only time will tell. As always with these things, the many tech industry pundits and analysts will look at this deal from all possible angles and then some, and still only a handful will end up being somewhat accurate when we look back in a couple of years.

From a non-financial point of view, the acquisition makes a ton of sense today, though.

Skype digitally connects dozens of millions of people on a daily basis, enabling them to communicate with each other through voice calls, chat messages and video conferencing.

There’s no doubt it’s a big brand on the Web (with both consumer and enterprise appeal, worldwide at that), and is poised to keep mattering in the next decade and beyond.

Skype’s current products will continue to be offered, but over time the service will also be integrated “across an array of Microsoft products”.

Update: from another Microsoft blog post:

In the near future, Skype will be connecting on XBOX Live and VideoKinect for XBOX Live. In addition to skyping with XBOX Live gamers, Skype users with be able connect with Microsoft Lync Enterprise Voice for your school or university. Later this year, Skype and Lync clients will be available on the Windows Phone 7.5 (“Mango.”)

It should be noted that the acquisition still remains under review in a limited number of countries.

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Here’s a new one on turning against your former wet-nurse. Huddle was once a Microsoft BizSpark One company. But it’s business collaboration platform now competes with Microsoft’s Sharepoint. Indeed, there are rumours that UK-based Huddle (which now has a large SF office) was once yanked off stage at Mix ‘O6 at the last minute because someone realised the potential controversy. No stranger to controversy, Huddle also recently managed to convince Google to change it’s Google+ feature called Huddle. Now Huddle is back to harass its alma mater.

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NextDocs, a company that sells Microsoft SharePoint based software for the life sciences industry, has raised $10.3 million in a Series A financing from OpenView Venture Partners.

NextDocs helps life sciences companies of leverage SharePoint-based document and management software.The company actually customizes SharePoint for companies in the pharmaceuticals, medical device and biotech industries. NextDocs actually has over 100 customers across the life sciences industry (including five of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.).

And the company is growing at an impressive clip. NextDocs expects to pull in $15 million in revenue this year, and has doubled in size over the past two years. NextDocs says that it will put the new funding towards product development, customer service and support, and expansion into new markets.

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Redmond giant has been chastised for failing to take the lead when new
technology rears its head or for being ‘out of touch’ in general. On that note,
Microsoft took a bit of a hit earlier this week, when the company’s general
counsel lamented the shortage of good IT workers. His solution? Petition the
U.S. congress to raise cap on green cards so it can import more high-tech
help.

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That caused a kneejerk reaction among programmers, who contend that Microsoft
can’t find people to fill their apparent 4,551 job openings because they limit
their searches to younger, less expensive workers. The idea that older
programmers lack modern skill sets (in cloud and mobility for example) has
tempers flaring as well, with many doubting that their younger counterparts
wield them either. “I doubt the ones they are bringing over on H-1B visas
necessarily have those skills,” said the communications director for WashTech,
an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America, “They give them a
three-week crash course and then call them a Java programmer.”

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Miszewski was formerly the general manager of Worldwide Government for Microsoft, where he advised national, regional and local government leaders on technology that supports their individual policy agendas and their citizens.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Miszewski was CIO for the state of Wisconsin where he oversaw the state’s approximately $400 million annual investment in information technology and was a strategic advisor in the governor’s cabinet.

For Salesforce, this represents a big push in expanding its client base into the public sector. The company also recently brought on enterprise tech visionary JP Rangaswami as Chief Scientist.

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When Mayor Bloomberg wants to make an announcement with Microsoft, CEO Steve Ballmer gets on a plane and flies to New York City. That’s because he’s Mayor Bloomberg, but also because New York City is a very large customer with 100,000 city employees. Today Ballmer and Bloomberg are in City Hall announcing a new five-year deal which will roll up dozens of separate city contracts with Microsoft into one master agreement and is projected to save the city $50 million. The value of the deal is about $100 million, or $20 million a year.

The savings will come from the consolidation of different contracts, but also by shifting some of the city’s software needs to the cloud. The first phase of the deal impacts 30,000 city employees, and will include Microsoft Windows 7, Office, Sharepoint, Exchange, Live Meetings, Azure, Windows Server, development tools, and database products. (When Office 365 becomes available that too could be rolled up into the contract).

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At first, the press release sent out today by Microsoft announcing the settlement seems even-steven. The patent agreement will allow Salesforce to receive coverage under Microsoft patents, and Microsoft to receive coverage under Salesforce’s patents. Nice. Everyone is happy. But then comes a paragraph indicating that Salesforce is actually paying Microsoft for the patent coverage “based on the strength of Microsoft’s leading patent portfolio.”

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