One of the ways that BlackBerry has managed to differentiate themselves from the pack is by offering up their own mobile device management (MDM) platform. This came in the form of BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) which allowed a company’s IT admin to manage the BlackBerry devices that are linked to the server. For example should a phone go missing, the IT admin can remotely wipe the data from it, so as to prevent possible trade secrets from being leaked to the competition or to the public.
However in what seems like a surprising move, BlackBerry has recently announced that they will be allowing third party MDMs to manage BlackBerry 10 devices. The company has revealed that companies such as AirWatch, Citrix, and IBM have expressed interest in supporting BlackBerry 10 on their own platforms, and now it looks like they will be able to do just that.
Like we said earlier, BlackBerry has typically limited management of their devices to their own BES platform, so it’s surprising that they are willing to open it up to other companies. At the same time, it is possible that BlackBerry could be encouraging more adoption of their products by being more flexible.
After all some companies might not want to pay for BES and there could be cheaper alternatives out there, so they could still give BlackBerry business by purchasing their products, but at the same time use a different platform to manage their phones.
According to Ron Louks, President of Devices and Emerging Solutions, BlackBerry, “Offering the end-to-end secure solutions valued by our customers in government and other regulated industries remains central to our strategy; however BlackBerry understands the opportunity and importance of opening our BlackBerry 10 software.”
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