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Research In Motion (RIM) is developing software that will keep BlackBerry users' business use separate from pleasure.

CrackBerry owners will be able to maintain their preferred work-life balance with, well, Balance, an app the RIM bosses say will give them effectively two phones in one, Reuters reports.

Mobile phone networks are currently testing Balance, said senior RIM-er Jeff McDowell.

"There are two fundamental use cases on the smartphone - enterprise and personal. The problem is that they are conflicting," he said in an interview with Reuters. "We just wanted to create an innovative solution that allows enterprises to manage the corporate data side while at the same time give their employees the freedom to use Facebook and browse the Web and get their Internet email at the same time."

Balance does this by ringfencing apps under the control of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and keeping separate the web browser and an employee's social networking and photographs separate from

Balance will be out in the US a couple of months' time. Its presence is no great surprise: RIM hinted during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month that its upcoming PlayBook tablet will sport this kind of separation between the corporate and the consumer.

The BlackBerry platform's inability to work happily in both worlds is leading users to buy a second smartphone for personal use. RIM understandably worries that that purchase might not be a second BlackBerry. ®

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