Im sure plenty of you have heard the coined phrase,”Work hard, play harder” before. Many BlackBerry users including myself, use our BlackBerry smartphones for work and business. However, what happens when we are NOT working? The human being is a social creature, who loves to socialize and ‘play’ when not occupied. Questions have been asked, and RIM has responded. RIM and their software teams are aware of this need and are working to address it by providing enterprises with the necessary tools via the BlackBerry® platform.
RIM caught up with Santiago Carbonell, a Handheld Software Product Manager at RIM, who is one of the people working on a new feature coming to the BlackBerry platform. Continue reading for the complete interview>>>
That sounds cool, but what do you mean by coexistence?
Enterprises understandably need to be very protective of their corporate data and communications, and the BlackBerry platform has always allowed that information to be mobilized securely and efficiently through a robust set of IT policies. These policies allow enterprises to control virtually every aspect of the smartphone, down to whether or not personal email addresses or 3rd party applications can be added. This helps to prevent security no-no’s like data leakage, where confidential information sent to the smartphone via a work email is then shared via a personal email address or through some other application.
However, this means that in the interests of corporate security, some BlackBerry smartphone users can’t add their personal email accounts, access Facebook® or download 3rd party applications. RIM recognizes that enterprise employees are also consumers and we want to stay ahead of the curve by allowing those employees to do their jobs, but also take advantage of all the rich consumer-focused features that are a part of the BlackBerry smartphone.
So, for example, the average employee will be able to respond to that urgent email from their boss, but then a minute later be able to check up on their kids over BlackBerry® Messenger or Facebook, because their employer is comfortable with the security measures protecting their sensitive data.
Exactly.
So it’s a win for the company and the user, because they both get what they want.
Yep. =D Enterprises can then allow employees with their own BlackBerry smartphones to bring them into the office at no cost using products like BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express. The employee gets access to all their corporate services (work email, work calendar… etc.) and is still able to enjoy using their BlackBerry smartphone in their personal life because the security concerns are addressed.
Without giving away the secret sauce, how is this going to work? Will the BlackBerry smartphone user notice anything different?
Really what we’re working on is keeping the enterprise data where it belongs. That means sensitive information like emails or important business contacts can stay highly secure and controlled. This is all happening in the background of the platform, so the BlackBerry smartphone user won’t really notice anything different. However, if they try to do something their company would deem unacceptable with that data, the platform is designed to help prevent it from happening and notify the user.
Thanks for this! I’m looking forward to grilling you for more information as it becomes available to put on Inside BlackBerry.
No problem!