RIM announced the news on its .

The service, which is expected to be available in closed beta mid-2011, will have similar features to that of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, according to RIM, and will initially be available for Exchange Online for Office 365 on a subscription basis.

As part of the agreement between the two companies, Microsoft has changed the price of the current Microsoft-hosted BlackBerry enterprise service for Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) Standard so there is no monthly charge per user per month, although users must have a BlackBerry service plan.

BPOS is the predecessor to Office 365. The pricing will also be available for the RIM-hosted BlackBerry enterprise service for Microsoft Office 365, which will replace the current Microsoft-hosted BlackBerry enterprise service for BPOS Standard.

The company also flagged upcoming support for more popular messaging platforms. The move is part of an ongoing commitment to Cloud-based enterprise services, which includes BlackBerry Balance, a tool that aims to help separate work and personal data on BlackBerrys to help manage and secure employee-owned smartphones.