Trend Micro™ recently published a report that seeks to address the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend in the workplace by evaluating leading mobile platforms based on security standards and corporate integration. “An increasing number of companies are opening corporate networks and data to consumer mobile technology,” states the report in its Executive Summary. Although “BYOD” may be the buzzword of the year, securing these devices is a major concern for IT administrators – and on the other side it makes perfect sense for employees to seek to bring their own smartphones to work. Their own individual devices have the capability, they’re familiar, and they avoid the dual-device headache that some have faced.

The report published by Trend Micro seeks to inform those facing this trend to ensure that they are able to tackle it effectively, efficiently, and securely within their organizations. Sizes of business vary, as well as industry and information sensitivity, but data security is important to all businesses employing mobile solutions today. And in some cases, keeping data secure can be a make-or-break scenario hinging on retaining a competitive advantage.

The report rates the BlackBerry® 7 OS as having the highest overall rating for security out of all four major smartphone platforms. For example, it was the only operating system with any rating at all for device firewall. Overall, Trend Micro wrote: “Corporate-grade security and manageability make this [BlackBerry] platform the option of choice for the most stringent mobile roles.”

Okay, so it’s secure. But I need features and usability!

This is where many authors stop. The platform is demonstrated as secure, a clear conclusion is presented, and reputable sources cited. However, we know that you and your employees need so much more than this. The underlying issue behind BYOD is that employees want to use the incredible features included in these smartphones: the camera, webmail, Facebook®, Twitter®, LinkedIn®, blogs, and more. Today our mobile phones allow us to be constantly connected to all aspects of our life – including during the 9AM-5PM timeframe.

What we’re looking at here is a set of requirements for a mobile solution within your organization. I’d outline them something like this:

• Supports multiple mobile platforms, allowing use of personal phones for work
• Able to connect these devices to your infrastructure and mail servers
• Includes manageability of your data – remote wipe, provisioning, security measures, and more
• Leaves personal data untouched
• A feature-rich experience, including access to social media, while limiting risk to the company

This isn’t the first time these requirements have been presented. This is what’s happening right now in corporate mobility. It’s also what has been requested of the BlackBerry platform as a trusted provider of mobile solutions with. Here’s what we came up with:

BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion

Strike off number one, two, and three from that requirements list. BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is designed to allow you to support multiple platforms including BlackBerry OS, iOS® and Android™ smartphones and tablets. Secondly, it allows you to connect these devices into your infrastructure to setup corporate mail, IT policies, data encryption, and more. And thirdly, it allows you to set data management policies.

BlackBerry® Balance™

This is where BlackBerry really shines. Most BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet include this feature, and this one smashes requirements number four and five out of the park. BlackBerry Balance technology creates a secure perimeter within the OS of a BlackBerry device, which separates work and personal apps, data, accounts, and more. The end user experience is designed to be seamless, and within the inner workings, specific settings can be created to prevent data from passing from the corporate area to the personal. This allows for a full-featured experience for employees who use social media and other personal apps and accounts. It also saves the cost of deploying corporately owned BlackBerry devices if employees have their own BlackBerry smartphones that can be brought into the company network and activated with BlackBerry Balance technology.

Moving forward from here: industry trends, and our roadmap for the future

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and BlackBerry Balance technology are designed to help organizations cut costs, and minimize security risks while maintaining a great user experience, and to set you up for the future in response to fast-moving trends in business mobility. From here, we do what we do best: closely watch for new challenges around the corner, listen to our business customers to understand what they need, and craft solutions to keep you one step ahead.

In terms of specifics, it was fantastic to hear our CIO, Robin Bienfait, and Alan Panezic, VP of Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at RIM, take the stage at BlackBerry World™ 2012 to make a few exciting announcements. Within the next year, they shared, BlackBerry Mobile Fusion will be offered as a cloud-based solution, as well as via partners as a hosted solution. This will make it even easier to face what’s being thrown at you, simplify deployment, and present major opportunities for our many partners and resellers. We’ll be diving into these announcements to unpack what they mean for you in the coming months. I can’t wait to get started!

What’s one challenge that your organization is facing in terms of mobile devices? Share in the comments below.

The BlackBerry® Enterprise Applications Showcase is designed to show you how to make a productive mobile enterprise a reality. This one-day virtual event, taking place on May 30th, will allow you to attend live demos, ask questions of experts and explore the exhibition hall, all from the comfort of your own office.

Key partner applications from Citrix, SAP, and Box will be highlighted, and will show you how to fully enable a productive mobile office. Not only will you hear from some great speakers, but you’ll also be able to download relevant information to review and share with your colleagues and decision-makers. The BlackBerry® Resource Center is perfectly suited to host this event, with an interactive conference-style environment that you can explore and take advantage of.

Details

Wednesday May 30th, 2012
10:30am ET – 2:30pm ET
Register now

You can easily register through the BlackBerry Resource Center for your virtual seat at this great event, as well as to see a full agenda. Not a member already? It’s quick and easy to join – register today and start reaping the benefits; there’s a whole lot that the resource center has to offer on an ongoing basis!

Does your organization deploy mobile apps to increase productivity or efficiency? Do you personally use apps this way? Share your experience in the comments.

This year, Research In Motion® (RIM®) sponsored the 2012 SMB 150 awards coordinated by SMB Nation. These are the second annual SMB 150 awards, which seek to recognize top performing small and medium-sized business technology partners based on both community voting and a panel of judges. The awards have come to a close and the winners have been announced on the SMB 150 website.

It’s been our pleasure to work and partner with small business communities to solve challenges around mobility, and to help businesses grow and succeed. Last Wednesday, Bryan Lee, Senior Director, Enterprise Accounts and I attended the awards gala for the 2012 SMB 150 awards and we were very excited to meet this year’s winners, including international winners who traveled all the way from Brazil, the U.K. and Australia to receive their awards. We enjoyed chatting with the winners and attendees in person to explore their unique perspectives on small business and technology. My most memorable moment of the evening was when one of the award recipients’ accepted his award from a remote location via BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet video conference.

My personal favorite tool that we’ve put together is the SmartBuilder for BlackBerry. SmartBuilder pieces together a personalized mobile solution set based on your business needs, which you can input by taking a short survey within the tool. We’ve had fantastic feedback and are often working to improve our offerings for the SMB community, so please share what the specific challenges and successes have been for your business this year!

Also worth taking a look at in order to take your SMB to the next level are the following:

• BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express (free)
• BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets to save costs and enable a mobile office
• BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) for both internal communication and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services to help integrate your Microsoft® Office 365 service and your BlackBerry smartphones

How has your SMB leveraged BlackBerry smartphones, tablets, or services to help grow your business and handle communication, collaboration, or CRM? Share in the comments below!

While I was in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, both on one of the BlackBerry® commuter shuttles and at the first Appy Hour event, I had a chance to help out with some more demonstrations of the BlackBerry® 7 OS and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets. Even though I use these devices on a daily basis, I love to explore the functions and tie the features into everyday business and personal use cases. Showcasing them to those viewing the devices and software for the first time makes it even better!

After walking through a few demonstrations of BlackBerry 7 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, I think a few of the biggest hits were remote control via BlackBerry Bridge, the overall interface of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (including the intuitive bezel gestures), and the mini-HDMI output that allows you to present on a projector, TV, or monitor at full HD 1080p.

As for BlackBerry 7 OS, the liquid graphics certainly pack a punch – but beyond the performance and sleek hardware, built-in apps like the updated BlackBerry® Travel, BlackBerry® Maps (with new contextual deals), and BlackBerry® Mobile Conferencing make the devices a must have for business.

The truth is, many organizations and individuals are using BlackBerry® 6 smartphones – and while we all have a soft spot for our original BlackBerry devices, we still want to get the latest and greatest into your hands! Unpacking some of the features of the top-of-the-line BlackBerry 7 OS models was a great experience, and the responses were fantastic as all involved were able to easily see how these can translate into more productivity at work and more intuitive connections to friends, family, and colleagues.

Cool phones…but what I get isn’t up to me!

Hands-on demos are great and all, but with many organizations in government providing the devices for work use, how can you actually make an upgrade happen? We’re trying to help with that too. Head over to www.upgrademenow.com to get some help on making that business case, or to learn how you can trade up a personally owned phone for a newer model (there are some amazing deals that can come along with this if you’re eligible!). Check it out today, and let us know how it goes.

Have you upgraded from BlackBerry 6 to a BlackBerry 7 OS smartphone? What do you like best about the new model? Share in the comments below.

Scott Totzke commented on the significance of the DoD accessing BlackBerry 7 OS technology: “The Army introduced a wide range of new apps and capabilities for their BlackBerry users last year, and these new BlackBerry 7 smartphones will now enable Army users, and all DoD users, to experience an even greater level of performance on new smartphones that include features such as voice activated universal search, Near Field Communications, Augmented Reality, and Social Feeds 2.0 just to name a few”.

But, even with all these great features, let me be clear – buying a device is not the same as crafting an enterprise grade mobility strategy. There’s back-end integration, security policy selection, budgetary considerations, and of course application deployment decisions. However, this pre-approval means that IT leaders can move from the tactical role of “device pickers” to a more strategic role of “mobile enablers” – providing greater value to the organization, and a more rewarding career for the IT staff.

Over the past year, the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog has featured conversations with Mike K. Brown (Director Product Security, SVP BlackBerry Security Group) around the various certifications and approvals RIM has achieved, such as FIPS 140-2 validation and Common Criteria EAL4+. There are many reasons why these certifications are important, but one of the recurring themes is around “making it easy for IT”. Certifications and official approvals allow IT decision makers to deploy BlackBerry devices in their organizations with ease by removing a certain amount of organizational or political risk. You can proceed with confidence knowing that not only are you making the right decision, but there’s an external, neutral, trusted body that has your back.

In the end, this approval will help ensure that the DoD is able to fully leverage the power of BlackBerry smartphones and realize the full potential of their investment in the BlackBerry platform.

How do you handle device selection? Do you have a pre-approved list? Are device upgrades based on time periods or technology shifts? Is your organization on BlackBerry 7, or are you missing out on key features?

Business Class Commuting

That loud morning alarm, the coffee that takes too long to brew, the traffic that jams itself up faster than you thought possible… No one likes to commute, that’s for sure. But, we figured that if you’ve got to do it, we might as well provide a free and comfortable option for you to do it in style! Introducing “business class commuting” for the month of May: a BlackBerry shuttle service for those of you heading into and out of Washington D.C. If you see one of these shuttles, climb aboard! Not only will you handle the early morning trek in comfort, you’ll also have a chance to try out BlackBerry 7 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, which we’ve made available in the shuttles and loaded up with apps and bookmarks we think you might like.

The response that I’ve seen so far has been fantastic. Beyond the free ride, individuals are really learning new things about BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, and how they can be leveraged in amazing ways for both personal and work purposes. Don’t take my word for it – check out the video below:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

Appy Hours Have Arrived!

One more thing before you run out the door to find a BlackBerry commuter shuttle: “Appy Hours” are also being introduced in May. The first was on Thursday May 10th, and there will be a second on May 30th from 6-8pm at Bullfeathers. If you missed the opportunity to get your hands on a BlackBerry 7 smartphone or a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, this is your chance! You’ll also be able to ask questions, explore some of the incredible government use cases going on with this technology, and unwind after a long day.

Have you upgraded to BlackBerry 7 yet? If not, head over to www.upgrademenow.com to get the full scoop. If you have, share your favorite feature in the comments below!

Attending any conference, especially BlackBerry World, will get you inspired. You see the possibilities, you hear what other organizations are doing with the same technology (and constraints) you have, you meet with integrators and developers that can help you re-engineer your business processes…but come Monday morning, you still have to fill out that TPS report.

So, how do you prioritize the opportunities that are in front of you? How do you capitalize on the conference learnings before the momentum dies down?

I certainly have my own “back to work” challenges – not the least of which is editing nearly 50 videos captured during BlackBerry World! But I also have a list of longer-term ideas that were generated from BlackBerry World customer feedback and session content. I’m curious though as to what you took away from BlackBerry World. To use the Getting Things Done vernacular, what’s your “Next Action”? Here are some possible examples:

• Upgrading your organizations device collection to the current BlackBerry® 7 OS platform:
• Providing access to faster browsing, multiple form factors, WiFi® Calling, BlackBerry® Travel, etc.
• Launching department specific tablet computing pilot projects:
• Using a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet as a laptop replacement
• Equipping new, previously non-mobile, teams with tablets
• Moving to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0, perhaps in preparation for:
Deploying BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion, which could then enable BlackBerry® Device Service to manage BlackBerry PlayBook tablets or Universal Device Service for iOS and Android™ devices to address BYOD trends
• Documenting (or creating) your organizations mobile strategy:
• Bring Your Own Device policies and Authorized device preferences
• Defining application access and permission criteria
• User and company rights, responsibilities, and warnings
• Building (and perhaps ‘pushing’ out and managing through BlackBerry Mobile Fusion) your first (or next!) corporate application.

These are just the obvious tasks — there are hundreds of small sub-tasks and niche ideas. Clearly there’s a lot to be done in the coming months, and BlackBerry World has inspired IT leaders from around the world to ‘redefine possible’.

So, what’s on your post-BlackBerry World to-do list? How are you prioritizing these items? How do you make sure things don’t fall off the radar? Not only would your IT peers appreciate your advice, experience, and insight, but right now I could personally use some suggestions before my own project list falls to the wayside! Let us know in the comments.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend one of the “Appy Hour” events that we hosted on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Many segments of the U.S. government, as well as other governments around the world, are big adopters of BlackBerry® products and solutions based on the built-in security, manageability, and many features that enhance productivity, communication, and efficiency. We took the opportunity to share hands-on demonstrations of BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets, and to answer any questions as they popped up.

It was great to meet with government staff in person to discuss how they use BlackBerry everyday as part of their work and personal lives. It was also the perfect opportunity to thank the Washington, D.C. community for its support of BlackBerry. To further express our appreciation beyond the Appy Hour events, we’re also “upgrading commutes” with BlackBerry shuttles in and out of the city every day for the month of May – look for those slug lines and jump on board!

There are incredible BlackBerry apps available for BlackBerry government customers – this was an “Appy Hour” after all. From email provisioning to Mobile Device Management, and from field staff to public safety workers, there are a ton of BlackBerry solutions to take advantage of. For example: data collection apps, IT and cloud management, resource tracking, notification/communication, and document management. Not to mention apps that you use outside of work like Twitter, photo editors, recipe apps, and so much more. Coupled with BlackBerry security, these apps and solutions can bring serious efficiency and positive process overhaul in government industries. The best part is that BlackBerry smartphones are already FIPS certified, as well as certified for use by the Department of Defense. (Watch for a blog post about this coming soon!)

If you missed the event last week, no problem! There will be another “Appy Hour” held on May 31st at Bullfeathers in Washington (5-7pm), so make sure that you come by to unwind and to get your hands on the latest BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. We’ll be there to help you out, showcase what we think will be your favorite and most useful features, and to answer questions. See you there!

What are the top two features of your BlackBerry device that you love to use for work and personal life respectively? Share in the comments below.

Police forces around the world have to keep up with technology – the bad guys certainly are! Law enforcement also has to ensure mobile solutions meet stringent security standards – ones that involve extra levels of authentication and encryption that prevent sensitive police records from unauthorized access. And policing is no more immune to budget restrictions than any other level of government, so cost-effectiveness has to be balanced with the real returns of making the mobile investment.

Let me share how accessing police databases while away from police cars is helping to revolutionize three police departments across Canada and the US: The Baltimore Police Department (Baltimore PD) in the US, and Chatham-Kent Police Services and Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) in Canada.

Police departments can leverage BlackBerry® smartphones to access police databases, helping to cost-effectively enhance frontline policing:

• Baltimore PD has 2,000 officers who use InterAct™ PocketCop on BlackBerry smartphones
• WRPS in Canada deployed 300 BlackBerry smartphones with MPANiche
• Chatham-Kent Police Services, also in Canada, built a custom application for 170 officers with their partner Mobile Innovations

What’s interesting about these apps is the obvious benefit of having critical police information in the officer’s hands versus having to go back to a computer in the police cruiser. This means an officer can verify if a suspect has a criminal record and if they match the mugshot. This allows greater efficiency and safety for officers in their daily work. And while we’re talking about safety, all three forces use built-in BlackBerry GPS technology to help pinpoint and map an officer’s location while away from vehicles – just in case they run into trouble while on foot.

Having a way to more securely access police databases like NCIC, MVA and CPIC from a BlackBerry smartphone is a huge improvement over in-car computers and radios – and it’s all done with the kind of security police forces demand. Chatham-Kent Police Services even uses an enhanced BlackBerry security tool like the BlackBerry® Smart Card Reader as well as SafeNet® Smart Card technology to enable multi-factor authentication, which means that the officer must confirm their identity through multiple sources before the information can be accessed.

In some cases, BlackBerry technology may even lower operational costs as compared to outfitting vehicles with hardwired laptops.

When it comes to public safety, BlackBerry is making an obvious impact – for the officers, for IT teams who need to ensure security, and for the communities the police are sworn to protect.

Have you seen a police officer use a BlackBerry smartphone on the job? Share your story.

What strikes me about their work is that many started with the core strengths of the BlackBerry platform for email, security and IT management, but have gone much further in their visions. For example, many have branched out with BlackBerry apps they’ve created or deployed with partners – apps that make doing the business of government so much more efficient with better service to the public and real ROI.

Over the next six weeks, I’m going to share these stories – from policing and public safety to helping the deaf and hard of hearing communities, from making it easier on people who inspect parks, buildings and waterways to informing prime minister’s offices that need to stay on top of the news. We all know today’s governments are cash- and resource-strapped, but also have to meet an increased demand for services. These customers in Colombia, Scotland, California, Baltimore and Canada show exactly why BlackBerry helps them get the job done, and why BlackBerry remains the number one choice of government mobile customers.

Stay tuned for the coming blog posts and find out how BlackBerry is making a difference in governments around the world.

Are you a part of a government office that uses BlackBerry solutions? Tell us how you’ve used mobile technology to make a difference on your staff, your politicians, or your citizens.