Blackberry Pwns Your Whole Device Management Now

No thanks to complexities that trends like IT consumerisation and BYOD (or bring personally-liable devices to work!) are introducing into organisations, costs to help manage it all would have increased 48-percent during a three year period from 2010 till next year, 2013. RIM’s latest Blackberry Mobile Fusion solution aims to help reduce this cost via a single, unified, Web-based console for easily managing devices.

 This solution modularly builds upon existing Blackberry Enterprise Server and Blackberry Enterprise Server Express solutions, the Waterloo-based company’s version of mobile device management for Blackberry smartphones. There is already an install base of 25,000 BES servers around the globe, providing advanced IT management and controls, a single outbound security connection and enforceable IT policies, not to mention established security features. Governments and about 90-percent of Fortune 500 companies use Blackberry smartphones today.

 Two new modules, Blackberry Device Services (BDS) and Unified Device Services (UDS) are introduced with Mobile Fusion, and UDS is especially interesting, as it was designed to meet demand from organisations that want to extend Blackberry’s established security features and manageability to iOS and Android devices.  

Upcoming BB10 devices and Playbooks would be managed by the BDS module, which also comes with support for Blackberry Balance, an application which separates work information from personal information on Blackberry devices, ultimately preventing leakage of corporate information.

Blackberry Mobile Fusion for iOS and Android devices is especially appealing because of the comprehensive mobile device management capabilities like support for multiple devices per user, application and software management, connectivity management, security and policy definition and management, asset management, remote lock and wipe, as well as user- and group-based administration among others.

Daniel Pratt, solution specialist for RIM said, “We have to go by the APIs that Apple and Android give us, so it can’t be as comprehensive or granular (as it is for Blackberry devices).”

The software is now available as a free download with client access licenses provided by Maxis, Celcom, Brightstar as well as Brightpoint. There is also ready support from locally trained system integrators Silver Ridge and Compurex. A 60-day free trial is available at www.blackberry.com.my/mobilefusion