14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion has just announced the release of a new appealing feature on BlackBerry smartphones, namely BlackBerry Balance, which comes with the possibility to keep one's personal and corporate lives apart on the same device.
According to RIM, the new software should provide convenience to both users and enterprises, since a single BlackBerry device would be there to serve both aspects of employees' lives without compromising the security of company content, or the privacy of personal content.
The new technology enables employees take their own BlackBerry devices to work, or use the company-owned smartphones for personal purposes. At the same time, they would be offered the possibility to secure, manage and control confidential company or client information.
“BlackBerry Balance is a win-win for employers and employees,” said Jim Tobin, senior vice president, software and services at Research In Motion.
“It’s a secure and cost-effective way for companies to keep employees connected and productive, while also allowing the flexibility for employees to carry a single
Through BlackBerry Balance, users would enjoy a unified view of work and personal content on their devices, while having the content kept separate and secure.
Users would enjoy a transparent division between work and personal content, while IT administrator would have the ability to set policies via BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express.
These settings can enable:
- Secure access to business information while preventing the information from being copied into, sent from or used by personal applications like Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Hotmail, Google Mail or Yahoo! Mail accounts. - Business data or files created by business applications cannot be used by personal applications. - If a user attempts an action that is prohibited by IT policy, a notification is displayed on the device. - If an employee leaves the organization, an administrator can remotely wipe business information from the device while leaving personal information intact. - If a device is lost or stolen, an administrator can wipe all information from the device to help ensure that sensitive business information and the user's personal information don’t fall into the wrong hands.
BlackBerry Balance was released with support for BlackBerry devices running under the latest version of BlackBerry 6 Device Software. It was built into BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.3 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express 5.0.3 (available this week) for Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino.