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RIM had a short webcast today to talk about their new BlackBerry Mobile Fusion enterprise product, which will support Android and iOS devices, on top of their own next-gen BBX products. One nice little tidbit to emerge from the webcast that we didn’t hear anything about in this morning’s press release was support for a Work tab in BlackBerry App World and within the PlayBook OS. Here, company-issued BlackBerry PlayBooks (and eventually smartphones) will be able to access and download apps that have been given the go-ahead by the IT department. Mandatory apps can be made undeletable by administrators, and it’s all built right into the existing App World client. By far the most interesting thing about the feature is how work and play stuff will be split up in the day-to-day experience.
Along the top status bar, you’ll be able to lock and unlock work mode, which will enable some of those enterprise apps while shutting out personal stuff. Getting access to Work Mode will require a password, so if you forget your PlayBook somewhere, there’s still some security in place. This is smart, considering there’s still no version of the PlayBook with cellular connectivity, which would enable easy remote wiping. Work mode ties in with the existing BlackBerry Balance implementation, but is way more visually obvious.
RIM also claims Fusion will have five times the scalability of BES; specifically, a single server will be able to take care of up to 10,000 devices. When the speaker, Alan Panezic, said “end users demand to have fun”, it’s clear to see RIM understands why they’re supporting Android and iOS. They even said that they would happily support other platforms if the demand was there, but they haven’t heard anyone moaning for anything else yet. Given RIM’s Microsoft partnership, and a Hotmail logo made an appearance in one of the slides, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Windows Phone plugged into BlackBerry Mobile Fusion at some point down the line.
I’m eager to try out the feature in person, but we won’t be seeing anything live and publicly available until February or March. Here’s a handful of slides from the webcast, but the whole set and audio replay should be available here within 24 hours.
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
