BlackBerry launches new enterprise services

MANILA, Philippines—As technology giants battle it out to become the world’s top smart phone vendor, Canada-based Research in Motion (RIM) has decided to go back to its roots by focusing on the market that drove BlackBerry’s success: the corporate sector.

In a recent briefing, local RIM officials announced several new developments, effectively increasing the role BlackBerry devices play in running big businesses.

The first is its new deal involving cloud-based BlackBerry Enterprise Service for Microsoft Office 365.

As part of the deal, Microsoft will reduce the price of its standard Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), which is the predecessor of Office 365, for corporate BlackBerry users.

From $10 a month today, the BPOS—a suite of communications and collaboration products for corporate clients—will now be offered for free.

Aside from bringing business applications to BlackBerry devices, the deal will also give management and administrator control over BlackBerry devices used by employees.

This can be used to “keep data separate from personal data on BlackBerry devices… change device passwords and settings and to locate and manage multiple BlackBerry users at once,” the company said.

Companies will also be able to reset device passwords, if forgotten by their owners, and remotely lock devices or wipe out memories if the phone is lost or stolen.

For smaller companies, RIM, through subsidiary ALT-N Technologies, also recently launched its MDaemon Messaging server.

This is a new edition of the popular Windows-based MDaemon server with BlackBerry smart phone synchronization, security, information technology (IT) policy management and control features built-in.

In a statement, RIM said the new service delivers simplicity and affordability without sacrificing “enterprise class” features of a professional email and messaging application.

“This will be the first of its kind: Email, collaboration and BlackBerry smart phone support built into a single software server,” the company said.

“What this means for the customer is one download, one installation wizard and one user interface to manage email and BlackBerry smart phone mobility needs… this is a very attractive platform for a segment that is driven by IT resource and budget constraints,” RIM added.

The company said the service would be the perfect complement to businesses that want the strength of BlackBerry smartphones, service and reliability in an “easy-to-manage” server environment.