BlackBerry Launches Secure Enterprise Environment for Android and iOS

Once a leader and pioneer in the corporate smartphone world, BlackBerry has had a few setbacks lately. It has completely re-defined and re-designed itself and its products and, in BlackBerry’s continuing push to regain its market share, it has made another bold move.

Today, June 25, BlackBerry launched a new feature, the Secure Work Space. This will allow government agencies as well as corporate clients to secure and manage Android and iOS devices. This is accomplished through the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) 10.

Earlier this year in May, BlackBerry held its BlackBerry Live 2013 event. At that time, it released BES version 10.1. This version brought with it new regulated level IT policy controls and settings. Today it brings another new feature into the mix. The management of the Secure Work Space feature.

Those who are familiar with the new BlackBerry 10 operating system know that one of the features geared towards the corporate world is its ability to separate work and personal profiles. This keeps the company data safe and secure while allowing the user to only have to carry one smartphone.

Secure Work Space will provide the same service for Android and iOS devices. Basically, it works as a strongbox providing security for these mobile devices. It keeps corporate information such as calendars, e-mail, tasks, Web browsing and document editing separate from the user’s personal data and content.

The feature will create an encrypted tunnel to the BES 10 server. It establishes a fully encrypted AES-256-bit tunnel into the BES 10 server. In turn, this ensures the security of all communications data coming from a mobile device. This is true even in cases where the Internet connection is not secure. IT staff also has a lot of control. It can remotely wipe a Secure Work Space without having any impact on the personal section of an Android or iOS mobile device.

David Smith, head of enterprise mobile computing for BlackBerry, made the following comments: "With an integrated management console, our clients can now see all of the devices they have on their network, manage those devices and connect to them securely. We now also have a secure work space on Android and iOS that allows our clients to secure and manage the data on those devices as well."

This is the shift that BlackBerry is making to provide more services for the enterprise environment instead of just focusing on making smartphones for the corporations. In the past month BlackBerry has seen a major increase in BES 10 server installations.

Between January and May there were about 12,000 BES 10 servers. In the past month that number has jumped to around 18,000 BES 10 servers. More than 60 percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies are testing or using Secure Work Space.

Secure Work Space is expected to help BlackBerry sell high margin services to clients whose employees may be using devices sold by its competitors. BlackBerry is putting stock in the hopes the new service will help it reclaim market share lost to Apple and Samsung.

By offering a feature that has value for the corporate client, BlackBerry may entice some of the companies to come back into the fold. The service gives the companies more control and better integration of employees’ mobile devices regardless of which operating system the device uses.

BlackBerry said that Secure Work Space would be available within the next few months. This announcement comes just a few days before BlackBerry reveals its Q1 Fiscal 2014 earnings.