BlackBerry Adds Good, WatchDox To BES 12

BlackBerry has integrated Good Technology containers and applications, as well as WatchDox’s file management capabilities, into BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) 12 – the Canadian company’s cross-platform enterprise mobility management (EMM) service.

Both Good and WatchDox were bought by BlackBerry last year as the firm continues to reposition itself as a service provider capable of managing and securing smartphones, tablets and other devices, including the Internet of Things.

Version 12.4 of BES integrates Good Work 2.0’s range of collaboration and secure email apps as well as Good Access for Windows, which offers a secure environment for the deployment of corporate HTML5 applications in a desktop browser, offering firms greater control of data.

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BES 12 upgrades

The Good Work email app has been updated with Box integration, S/MIME end-to-end encryption, PDF conversion and support for Voltage encrypted messages, while Good Connect instant messaging now works with Cisco Jabber.

WatchDox’s enterprise file-sync-and-share (EFSS) technology is now fully integrated, allowing admins to control how files are edited, copied or printed and to remotely revoke access or delete files.

Mobile file creation is now easier, while BlackBerry has also added Docs To Go support and DRM protection for email attachments. A new WatchDox iOS and Android app for Good Dynamics has also been released.

Elsewhere, BlackBerry has boosted BES 12 with behind-the-firewall access to native iOS mail and BlackBerry Secure Connect Plus for iOS, which can be configured per-device or as a per-app VPN.

BlackBerry strategy

“These enterprise software portfolio upgrades support our customers by providing market-leading mobile security and enterprise productivity while reducing IT complexity and resources through one unified EMM platform,” said Billy Ho, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Product and Value Added Solutions at BlackBerry.

“With the integration of Good and WatchDox products into our BES12 multi-OS EMM platform we have created one of the most comprehensive and flexible mobility management solutions on the market today.”

Once considered the market leader in smartphones, BlackBerry’s share of the market has been eroded to negligible by Android and iOS. Since John Chen became CEO in 2013 following a failed attempt to sell itself, BlackBerry has become increasingly focused on cross-platform services like BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BES.

It also appears to have abandoned its proprietary BlackBerry 10 (BB10) operating system in favour of an Android strategy. Google’s operating system was used in the critically-acclaimed BlackBerry Priv smartphone and more Android-powered devices are on the way.

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