At today's BlackBerry World keynote, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer surprised everyone by climbing on the stage to announce that Bing will become the default search engine on BlackBerry smartphones going forward. Ballmer also explained that Bing Maps is now the default mapping application on RIM's smartphones, but that Microsoft's search service will be integrated with BlackBerry devices at the OS level. However, there was no mention as to when we'll begin to see all of this integration take place and which BlackBerrys will feature it. RIM also showed off native PlayBook email, calendar, and contacts apps at the keynote this morning and said that it would be coming later this year.

Both Steve Ballmer's appearance and the announcement of Bing integration into the BlackBerry OS caught many people off-guard this morning and, although we don't know exactly what to expect from the partnership, it'll be interested to see exactly how deep the integration will go. What do you all think of the move? Are you upset that Bing will now be the default search and map tool for BlackBerrys? Do you care?

Via @Phonescooper, SlashGear