BlackBerry, a former smartphone leader which is fighting to regain territory, has launched a service which allows government agencies and corporates to secure and separate personal and corporate content across Android and iOS devices.
The new service follows news that the “classic” BlackBerry Q10 with touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard will hit telco town on July 2, starting at $60 for plans. It now comes in faster 4G speeds.
BlackBerry says that since launching in January 2013, 18,000 Enterprise Service 10 servers have been installed by customers around the world and Secure Work Space for iOS and Android has been trialled globally. Forrester Research estimates that in 2016, 350 million employees will use smartphones and 200 million will bring their own devices to the workplace.
BlackBerry says Secure Work Space offers the security needed by corporates, but the flexibility for staff to access their own material on their personal phones. Users with Secure Work Space get integrated email (with attachment viewing), calendar and contacts, as well as secure browser access to intranets and document editing capabilities with BlackBerry’s Documents To Go.
“With corporate data separated and controlled within the Secure Work Space container, these standard apps can be deployed with confidence to any user, together with other apps chosen by the company with BlackBerry customers since the launch,” says Blackberry.
The BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 server software is free to download. Annual client access licenses for Secure Work Space are $US99 per year per device.