RIM announces BlackBerry Protect

By on Jul 12, 2010 at 1:02 PM
Software July 12, 2010

bbprotect-1

RIM’s consumer-grade protection software for BlackBerry smartphones, dubbed Blackberry Protect, has just been officially announced. Rumored for months, the new service lets customers not attached to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server:

  • Protect important information on a lost BlackBerry smartphone by remotely wiping or locking the device from your desktop
  • Remotely add contact information to the home screen of a locked BlackBerry smartphone so it can be returned if found
  • See your BlackBerry smartphone’s location and pinpoint the current whereabouts of a lost or stolen device with cell tower and GPS device tracking
  • Find a nearby misplaced BlackBerry smartphone by remotely activating a loud ringer
  • Back up data from your BlackBerry smartphone (including Contacts and Calendar; Memos and Tasks; Browser Bookmarks and Text Messages) over Wi-Fi
  • Restore your data to a new BlackBerry smartphone, or simply switch from one BlackBerry smartphone to another

We recently got a demo of the Protect software, and — to be honest — we think it’s pretty solid. It will be in beta starting this week, and a more open beta later this year.

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35 Comments

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  • Eric S

    Find a nearby misplaced BlackBerry smartphone by remotely activating a loud ringer.

    That’s a cool feature.

    • J

      RIM finally does this? Andriod already has this! Look up an app called Where’s my Droid.

      • iMiiTH

        RIM has always done this with BES and for consumers there are various programs such as smrtguard that do the same.

        Remember that Where’s my Droid doesn’t work unless your phone actually has any remaining battery life, which android phones seem to have a hard keeping.

      • Ryan R

        Yeah there have been apps to do this on BB as well, but it’s different to have a core application created and ran by the manufacturer. The quality should be much better and it should be integrated into the devise better.

  • William Pirinzi

    Solid.

  • Swagger

    Still waiting on EVO review….

  • Duder

    They’re slowly turning into Palm. Software is starting to mature but hardware continues to underwhelm. Why isn’t there a company that can nail both?

    • LCW

      with 9800 coming, hopefully that is the beginning of RIM’s transformation into a more modern operation for both software AND hardware… can only hope…

      • wild homes

        I’m sorry, but I look at the 9800 and see something straight out of 2006. I know form factor isn’t everything, but everything RIM make anymore seems like a relic the moment you open the box. Underwhelming UI, bad browser, incremental upgrades in 6.0, and the same mediocre hardware with a good keyboard and middling build quality, over and over again. It’s sad, because the window for them to modernise is closing fast.

      • Devon2000

        Thats your wack ass opinion, I think the 9800 looks beautiful, i cant wait til it comes out on sprint, and if u did any real research they have a new webkit browser that will be able to support flash, and have a tab feature so u can be on more than one website at once, that shows that u have no idea what u r talking about

  • b4k3d

    This is definitely good news for me!

  • Bada$$

    Still dont want one..RoRo Doucher will though!

  • Dave Lee

    This is better than some of the features of MobileMe on the iPhone and will presumably be free, Take that Jobs

    - for the record i’m typing this on my MacBook and have a blackberry so shush fanboys

  • MikeD

    This is great!

    And who said RIM Blackberry is dead?

    • kay

      Dumb people

    • iMiiTH

      iAndroid OS fanboys. -_-

  • James

    This is what Apple needs. But no, that would be too damn nice.

    • Chris

      This is what Apple HAS. It’s called find my iPhone, and it’s been out for a long time. It has every one of these features. However, it’s not free. That would be nice.

  • http://www.helixzone.net helix2301

    This is great that’s why I like blackberry for the business class. There phones might not be as popular as the Iphone or the Android but when it comes to business grade phones RIM is right on. Not to mention there e-mail push is the best around.

  • PATSNSOX

    Are you kidding me … RIM is loosing the battle on smartphone and they push a BB Protect…. RIM wake up you are DYING! …

  • mezmryz03

    Good work BB.

  • reggie

    What if the you are using a blackberry tour which obviously doesn’t have wi-fi? Otherwise it sounds pretty cool

  • reggie

    What if the you are using a blackberry tour which obviously doesn’t have wi-fi? Otherwise it sounds pretty cool, I can’t wait to try it out

  • Jake

    Whatever it may be, RIM keeps focusing on new hardware every month, promotional videos of OS 6 (and trust me you still see the clock a lot as I use it for testing these days), and beta software full of bugs. Having been a RIM customer for over 4 years now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the company is interested in merely one thing: suicide. Lagging far behind the competition along with the release of useless phones (hardware is decent however software still isn’t upto the mark) are making the company fall far behind than the technology generation. Many will disagree with my comment today, however, see for yourself after trying out the companies products for over a years time, if they happen to last that long (/sarcasm).

    • iMiiTH

      BlackBerry’s messaging capabilities kick’s any platform’s ass at the current moment.

  • Jazzyl

    Good news for all of us Crackberries.

  • Wow

    This is awesome

  • Wow

    This is much awesome

  • Chris

    When do I buy RIM shares?

  • fetus

    Where can I sign up? I’ve been waiting for this since it was first rumored months ago.

    I also like how since it’s from RIM it should be fairly reliable, also it appears to be added for FREE. It doesn’t require a $100/year email account along with monthly data charges like MobileMe.

  • dkorda

    RIM is in trouble, bigtime behind.

  • iamajim

    personally as a bb user i’m pretty excited about this; losing your phone nowadays with all that is on it is a big problem, like losing your wallet.

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