RIM to turn BlackBerrys into ID cards with NFC technology

While everyone and their mother's dog are clamouring to use NFC to create digital wallets in smartphones, Research In Motion also wants to leverage the technology to turn its BlackBerrys into ID cards.

Given that BlackBerry is still a major player in the enterprise space, creating a system where the RIM devices can act as identification tags for government and corporate buildings is a natural value-add to the company's offering to businesses.

RIM will be working with HID Global to accomplish this. HID's contactless smart cards are ubiquitous in corporate and government buildings. The company chose to work with RIM because of the Waterloo giant's "tremendous" presence in enterprise. Many users of HID cards already use BlackBerrys in their offices too, making the partnership conveniently logical.

There is no specific timeline for this new feature, but RIM's 2012 QNX-powered devices should all have NFC, and from there, it's only a matter of time. The question is, can RIM go back to being an innovative first-mover, or will it show up to the party late again?