BlackBerry To Allow Other MDM Vendors To Manage BlackBerry 10 Smartphones

Steve McCaskill,

Airwatch, Citrix, IBM and SAP all want to be able to manage BlackBerry 10 handsets

BlackBerry is to let mobile device management (MDM) platforms from other companies manage BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

The perpetually-delayed BlackBerry 10 operating system failed to regain the smartphone market share ceded by the company to the likes of Apple and Samsung, and has resulted in a significant change in strategy.

The Canadian manufacturer says it wants to provide organisations with the ability to support handsets running a range of operating systems and will hope that the move will encourage more businesses to use BlackBerry 10 devices on their networks.

BlackBerry 10 management

Blackberry fruit nice and luscious © Anna Kucherova ShutterstockAirWatch, which was recently acquired by VMWare, Citrix, IBM and SAP have all expressed their interest in becoming the first third party vendors to support BlackBerry 10 handsets using their platforms.

BlackBerry says the decision is a “natural” one to make and has reiterated its commitment to providing its own smartphones and services to businesses.

“Offering the end-to-end secure solutions valued by our customers in government and other regulated industries remains central to our strategy; however BlackBerry understands the opportunity and importance of opening our BlackBerry 10 software,” says Ron Louks, president of devices and emerging solutions at BlackBerry. “This is a natural next step in our enterprise strategy as we seek to provide our customers with maximum choice in how they will meet the full array of employee mobility needs.”

BlackBerry’s own MDM platform, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10) manages Android, iOS and BlackBerry devices it will also support corporately-owned Windows Phone smartphones when BES12 launches later this year.

A number of firms, including Samsung and Good Technology, are eyeing up BlackBerry’s share of the MDM market given its recent troubles, but the market is one of the pillars of its latest recovery plan, along with enterprise messaging services using BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and its QNX embedded systems software.

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