It looks like IBM might be taking a page out of Dell's book and getting involved with the mobile phone industry. The New York Times released an article today that reveals IBM's plans to invest an astonishing $100 million dollars in mobile phone research.

This is the first time we've seen IBM get involved in mobile phones. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a bit of this research money goes into designing a smartphone of some sort. The enormous popularity of mobile Internet browsing means that any PC manufacturer is going to have to address the mobile industry if they hope to remain at the top of their game, IBM realizes this.

Right now, IBM looks to be focusing primarily on mobile support research. Their stated areas of interest are, “mobile payment methods, security, privacy, and user interface and, chiefly, to enhance the ability of corporations to used mobile devices to interact with customers and employees.”

The fact that IBM may be dabbling in UI research is the most interesting part of this article to me. Does that mean we might have another mobile UI being shopped around to mobile manufacturers in the near future? Or is building a UI IBM's first step before creating a mobile line-up? It's too early to tell right now, but the sheer amount of money they are putting behind this research makes me think we're about to see something very big from IBM.