There’s apparently a new slogan at BlackBerry (BBRY): If you can’t beat ’em, integrate ’em. BlackBerry on Thursday announced Work Space, a new feature for its BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 mobile device management platform that aims to “provide complete separation between work and personal data.” If this sounds familiar, that’s because BlackBerry has already brought this capability to its own devices with its own BlackBerry Balance feature — the difference is that Work Space is extending some of Balance’s capabilities to iOS and Android devices. Expanding the reach of its security services to multiple platforms is crucial for BlackBerry, especially as it faces added heat from Samsung (005930), which plans to aggressively market its devices to the enterprise as business tools. BlackBerry’s full press release is posted below.
BlackBerry Previews Secure Work Space Technology for Third Party Platforms
Extending BlackBerry’s trusted, gold standard security to separate work and personal data on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets
Mar 14, 2013
Waterloo, ON – BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) today confirmed its commitment to bringing a solution that will separate and secure work and personal data on mobile devices to third party platforms. Secure Work Space for iOS® and Android™ will be managed through BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10, BlackBerry’s multi-platform enterprise mobility management solution which builds upon more than a decade of enterprise and security expertise and is the most widely deployed mobility solution in enterprises today.
An update for BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 will soon extend BlackBerry security capabilities for data-at-rest and data-in-transit and provide complete separation between work and personal data. The BlackBerry Secure Work Space solution includes secured client applications for email, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos, secure browsing and document editing for each device that is provisioned via BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.
“With BlackBerry® Balance™ technology, we offer the industry’s only true compromise-free separation of work and personal data and applications,” said David J Smith, EVP, Enterprise Mobile Computing. “With Secure Work Space for iOS and Android devices, we’re extending as many of these features as possible to other platforms, critical in today’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) world. BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 offers administrators a single, intuitive platform enabling them to effectively and securely manage a variety of devices while protecting their corporate assets and at the same time providing employees the flexibility they desire.”
The Secure Work Space solution enables customers to save considerable effort and expense as they no longer need to configure and manage expensive VPN infrastructures to provide mobile device access to data and applications that reside behind their corporate firewalls. With end-to-end enterprise mobility management, a straightforward deployment process, and a global and flexible technical support model, BlackBerry offers a secure and reliable solution as the clear choice for enterprises and governments to support BYOD policies for iOS and Android platforms. Additional applications can easily be secured and added to the workspace, without the need to modify source code.
“The vast majority of smartphones on the market aren’t adequately secure for corporate or government work,” said Robert Enderle, Principal Analyst, Enderle Group. “Currently BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 combined with BlackBerry Balance or Secure Work Space has the only volume solution which has been designed from the ground up to provide the security most IT departments require. With this announcement BlackBerry is expanding beyond their own top to bottom approach to security to address this need on other platforms. With this product BlackBerry is showcasing their security legacy by providing a stronger cross platform security solution than anyone else can in the market.”
Closed beta testing for Secure Work Space has already started and general availability will be offered by the end of the second quarter, calendar year 2013. More details will be announced at the BlackBerry Live conference in May, 2013 in Orlando, Florida.
