"We are excited to extend the Yahoo! experience to millions of BlackBerry users around the world," said Doug Garland, senior vice president, Yahoo! Mobile, as Yahoo! Inc. and Research In Motion (RIM) today announced a new relationship to provide Yahoo! Messenger service to BlackBerry users around the world.

This new relationship, the companies said in a statement, "combines two respected leaders and brands to deliver an enhanced mobile communications solution."

Through this relationship, Yahoo! and RIM plan to pre-install full-color, graphical Yahoo! Messenger clients on BlackBerry devices in the coming months.

Yahoo! Messenger is one of the leading instant messaging services in the world and BlackBerry users will be able to access and connect with everyone on their "friends" list while they are on the go.

"Yahoo! has become an essential part of the lives of millions of its users and by bringing the services they love to these great mobile devices we are making it easier for people to communicate however they want, anywhere, anytime," Garland said.

This new relationship builds on Yahoo!'s strategy of extending its core services beyond the desktop and RIM's strategy to provide a robust and expandable wireless platform in order to give customers a truly integrated communications experience. The companies also intend to provide a further enhanced Yahoo! Mail offering in the future.

The Yahoo! Messenger service on the BlackBerry platform will allow consumers to see which friends are online, send and receive instant messages, have multiple conversations at once, participate in online conferences and even send and view emoticons. Yahoo! Messenger will leverage the BlackBerry "push" technology to deliver a premier instant messaging experience for mobile users.

"BlackBerry provides optimized messaging capabilities with its popular keyboards, largescreens, intuitive navigation and push-based connectivity," said Mark Guibert, Vice President, Corporate Marketing at Research In Motion. "Through our relationship with Yahoo!, BlackBerry users will enjoy another powerful communications option to keep them connected while away from their desk."

Customers can also currently access Yahoo! Mobile Internet, including Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Sports on BlackBerry devices, depending on what carrier they have. Through Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! focuses on extending key Yahoo! services beyond the desktop, providing an integrated PC-to-Mobile experience and helping consumers make the most of the mobile environment. As the number of mobile consumers continues to grow, Yahoo! has rolled out mobile extensions of key services across multiple carriers. RIM and Yahoo! plan to work with carriers to make the services available to customers.