BlackBerry to enterprise customers: Don't panic

BlackBerry knows where its towel lies: In Enterprise Mobility Management. John Chen, Interim CEO of BlackBerry made this very clear to its enterprise customers in an open letter .

After trying desperately to woo consumers into abandoning Android and iOS phones, and all this while it was going to major financial and management upheavals and dodging harsh criticism from media, analysts and investors at the same time, John Chen has accepted in his letter that the company knows BlackBerry devices are not for everyone. That’s OK, he adds in all practicality.

Chen mentioned that their “for sale” sign has been taken down and they are here to stay. He assured customers that have already made investments in BlackBerry infrastructure and solutions and promised them that the company is going back to its roots - delivering enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions. BlackBerry will target four areas: handsets, EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) solutions, cross-platform messaging and embedded systems. And, of course, will continue to invest in enterprise and security related R&D.

Chen also took a shot at how competitors want enterprises to think that their BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Services) only manages BlackBerry devices and is somehow more expensive than other MDMs. “We’re serious about multiplatform MDM (Mobile Device Management) and even more serious about multiplatform EMM. We deliberately moved to a new platform with BES10 last year. Making this change enables us to manage all devices, turbo-charge BYOD initiatives and provide the very best management experience,” he shares.

Incidentally, BlackBerry just issued a statement today saying that they have enhanced BES10 and customers including Morgan Stanley, Boeing, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and Secusmart are currently participating in the BES10 version 10.2 Early Adopter and Beta programs, and are running the new version in a test environment.  

The new version has truly expanded multi-platform support and allows IT administrators to create activation and application distribution rules for the latest iOS and Android devices that employees bring into the organisation, without requiring a server upgrade.

Enhancements to BES10 also make BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) simpler. It allows administrators to manage only the Secure Work Space container on iOS and Android devices, thereby providing BYOD users with the assurance that the personal information and apps on their device remains in their control. It also features a self-service portal that enables users to perform device management tasks on their own, meaning fewer calls to IT, lower TCO and more control to users.

BES10 now scales to support 100,000 devices per domain, with any mix of BlackBerry, iOS and Android devices, reducing the number of servers and resources required for large scale deployments, and significantly reducing costs.

Chen painted a confident picture and says he knows that BlackBerry has a strong future in enterprise and believes in their technology and ability to adapt to changing market needs. Whether or not governments, global corporations and organisations that placed security high on the priority list continue to choose and trust BlackBerry remains to be seen.

As far as Chen is concerned, BlackBerry has a long way to go before another letter that says, ‘so long and thanks for all the fish.’