Government clients need a BlackBerry without a camera. The reason is simple: when you have such an incredible amount of top secret documents lying around, you can’t have people with cameras entering the facilities. While cameras can be controlled with IT policies, it’s safer to not have the hardware at all.
Government agencies also love a World Phone; in particular, foreign affairs. These two features make the BlackBerry Tour 9630 a great device for government.
It seems Sprint is capitalizing on this and offering the Tour without a camera in order to capture the government clients, as well as some enterprise clients with similar needs.
This could mean huge sales for the Tour if a few foreign affairs departments pick it up.
If you’re in government, or a large enterprise organization (1,000+ employees), we have a few questions for you:
1) What BlackBerry device are you using?
2) What IT policies are set on your device? (ie. Can you use Facebook?)
3) Does your organization/department allow cameras on the device?
Viigo has introduced a secure, mobile microblogging service for enterprise in conjunction with StatusNet support. This may be the first of its kind.
If you aren’t familiar with StatusNet, it’s basically a Twitter for corporate users. It’s a free, Open Source, microblogging platform where users can exchange 140 character messages either over the public Internet, or securely via a corporate Intranet.
While corporate Twitter accounts are generally very reserved due to brand and legal considerations, microblogging does mean more collaboration which makes it ideal for enterprise. By creating a secured microblogging service, companies can leverage the power of microblogging services, without worrying about the security implications.
A recent study conducted by Vanson Bourne, revealed that 65 per cent of surveyed IT departments are concerned about unauthorized users accessing data if an iPhone is lost or stolen. The same study also showed 64 per cent of IT departments not put into place security steps to protect against threats targeted at the iPhone. Most cited the fact that they aren’t widely used in business as the reason.
This study shows one of the glaring weaknesses of the iPhone to service enterprise. Because BlackBerry is by far the most secure platform in the smartphone market, many organizations have turned to it to ensure the protection of their most valuable asset: intellectual property.
While Apple deserves an incredible amount of respect for implementing a hugely successful App Store, it will forever be stuck in a consumer market. That being said, I think it’s easier to shift from enterprise to consumer, versus the other way around. RIM has the opportunity to service the consumer market with fun and innovative applications, and I would be surprised if the iPhone were ever able to position itself as a viable solution for IT managers looking to remotely manage a network of several thousand devices. In fact, a quick look at the latest iPhone 3.0 software reveals that it still can’t run applications in the background.
More interesting points revealed in the study include:
10 per cent of IT decision makers believe that the iPhone is not as good an email tool as the BlackBerry, and they only want to manage one form of device.
A little more than half (52 per cent) are concerned about the threat of downloading apps to the iPhone, while 40 per cent of respondents said they are worried about the threat of users downloading company data without the IT department knowing.
Some 14 per cent of IT departments have banned the use of smartphones altogether for work purposes.
Like any useful application for BlackBerry, Viigo has an enterprise version. Included in this enterprise version, is the ability to get financial data pushed to your device. The above video demonstrates how an enterprise may choose to use Viigo.
Mobile World Congress – Cisco is announcing further expansion of its mobile collaboration portfolio offering for leading 3G smartphones. Users will be able to join Cisco WebEx Meeting Center web and audio conferences on smartphones including the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve 8900, and BlackBerry Storm. They will be able to participate in audio and web conferencing via 3G or Wi-Fi, attend scheduled meetings and view presentations, applications and desktops with live annotations. In addition, Cisco is announcing the capability for hosts of Cisco WebEx meeting applications, including Meeting Center, Training Center, and Event Center to invite attendees with SMS-capable phones to attend meetings by responding to an SMS invitation.
“Enabling access to Cisco WebEx Meeting Center over BlackBerry smartphones offers a rich collaborative experience that will be welcomed by customers,” said Jeff McDowell, vice president of Global Alliances at Research In Motion. “This solution enhances mobile worker productivity with secure access and uses the unique and intuitive ‘Join Now’ capability of the BlackBerry platform — where one click connects to the conference automatically.”
Cisco WebEx Meeting Center support for these BlackBerrys is scheduled to be available in April 2009. You can see a list of key facts after the jump.
Some interesting news was released by RIM and Lenovo yesterday, as the two companies jointly announced a new mobile solution for ThinkPad laptops. Called Constant Connect, the solution will allow enterprise email received on a user’s BlackBerry smartphone to be automatically synchronized via Bluetooth onto the user’s ThinkPad laptop – even if the ThinkPad laptop is off – without the user having to take any additional steps. However, my boy Ronen over at BerryReview seems to question whether or not Constanct Connect is too specific of an enterprise solution to be of use to many people.
The card is essentially a Bluetooth radio with 500 Mb of storage and works with Outlook/Exchange, POP3, & Gmail. This might be cool if it would automatically let you use your BlackBerry as a tethered modem, but it doesn’t. From the wording of RIM’s press release, it will not even let you send email! The only use I can see for it is for attachments that open better on a laptop, otherwise this is a useless piece of… Who the hell is going to pay $150 to read email they already have on their BlackBerry? This will also tie up their Bluetooth connection and kill their BlackBerry battery and not letting them use a headset while on the go! Many workers who have $150 to spend and are mobile enough to justify a product like this probably already have a wireless data card built into their ThinkPad.
I’m leaning toward agreeing with Ronen here. Either you’re a ‘on-the-go business user’ that is more likely to invest in a wireless data card or a tetheringsolution, or you need email on your laptop so infrequently that you could simply find a wireless hotspot (at your nearest Starbucks, for example) when necessary. Post a comment and tell us who you think this product is for; the full press release is after the jump.
Longtime friends of BBCool, Simon Sage and Al Sacco, were at RIM’s media event in New York yesterday (we couldn’t attend because of a scheduling conflict, sigh) and both were able to grab more info on RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 – codenamed Argon. First to release dates, where RIM claimed a Q2 release date for BES 5.0. This may seem like lip service considering Argon was due to launch, oh, nine WES’ ago, but according to RIM, beta versions have been in the hands of companies for the last year, and in use internally for two, so I’m confident we’ll see it soon.
In addition, our boy Simon was able to grab an extended BES 5.0 feature set from what we posted yesterday – you can find it after the jump. If you’re still hungry for more Argon info, Al Sacco has written a great article on the Five (BES) 5.0 Features CIOs Need to Know About. As always, we’ll post more about Argon as we learn more.
RIM announced today the impending release of the latest version of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server. BES 5.0 will add a bunch of new features to improve the BlackBerry experience for enterprise users. Here’s a quick list of what’s been announced:
* Retrieve corporate documents behind firewalls
* Add, read, rename and delete folders on the handset and have those changes be applied to the desktop email client
* Create rules within the inbox to filter email and have those changes be applied to the desktop
* View attachments in calendar entries and meeting requests
* Download and store emails and email attachments onto microSD cards
It definitely sounds like the main focus of BES 5.0 is improving desktop/BlackBerry interaction in regards to email and calendaring functions. I’m also really excited about being able to take better advantage of the microSD card. We’ll let you know more about BES 5.0 as soon as we get it.
Here’s some more video goodness of our time at AIM Autosport for the Telus BlackBerry Curve 8350i launch event. I had a great time talking to Ian Willis, one of the founders of AIM, about a variety of things: why his company needs a PTT BlackBerry running on the Mike network, how cool his car is, and a special project he’s working on with RIM/Telus (it’s quite cool). Ian is actually a BlackBerry Cool reader and also gave us a nice shout out. If you want to learn more about AIM (they have a great team and wicked cars), you can check out another video about them after the jump, or a link to their website below.
While at Telus’ BlackBerry Curve 8350i launch event, I had the opportunity to speak with Mark Applebaum, Director of Strategy & Marketing, Mobility Solutions at Telus. You can think of Mark as the enterprise version of Judy Mellet, who we interviewed at the BlackBerry Storm launch party. Watch the video above to learn which industries should choose the 8350i over the BlackBerry Curve, why a PTT (push-to-talk) BlackBerry is better than a separate communications system, and more about iDEN’s superior voice quality and in-building penetration. We also give a shout out to the ancient BlackBerry 7100i.
As for the talk-time stats Mark mentions in the video, they can be found at the link below.
Mobile World Congress – Cisco is announcing further expansion of its mobile collaboration portfolio offering for leading 3G smartphones. Users will be able to join Cisco WebEx Meeting Center web and audio conferences on smartphones including the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve 8900, and BlackBerry Storm. They will be able to participate in audio and web conferencing via 3G or Wi-Fi, attend scheduled meetings and view presentations, applications and desktops with live annotations. In addition, Cisco is announcing the capability for hosts of Cisco WebEx meeting applications, including Meeting Center, Training Center, and Event Center to invite attendees with SMS-capable phones to attend meetings by responding to an SMS invitation.
