RIM Reinforces Relevance in Business Segments, Featuring Cloud Services

Event Summary

March 17, 2011 - In a webinar for the analyst community, RIM described new offers to be available later in the year targeted to business segments including individual employees/SOHOs/SMBs and enterprises. The session featured a new cloud-based BlackBerry Enterprise Service, which will be free to Exchange users with Microsoft Office 365. RIM also touted its upcoming PlayBook as a key enterprise device.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Moderate on RIM’s BlackBerry for Business announcements, because RIM’s diverse set of new business offers target individuals/SOHO (BlackBerry Protect); SMBs (BlackBerry Management Center); and enterprises (BlackBerry Enterprise Service - or “cloud BES”). RIM’s message had several underlying themes: BlackBerrys are not only highly manageable and secure but can be deployed less expensively without giving up their manageability and security; RIM plans to open up its market with more cloud services and partnerships; and RIM offers various options to meet the needs of different user segments. RIM also re-emphasized its positioning of the Playbook as an exceptionally enterprise-grade tablet. While RIM-or-partner-hosted versions of BES will help it compete against arguably less secure (but free and less complex) ActiveSync email/PIM sync from competitors, it will still find it difficult to stem the tide of defections of business users to more consumer-friendly iPhones and Android devices.

• Vendor Importance: High to RIM as it can’t afford to continue to lose share within its target segments. It must get away from the perception of being a closed, proprietary, complex, expensive and premises-based solution, as Google and its OEMs add more management and security to Android devices, ActiveSync remains free and middlewareless, and third-party MDM providers are happy to provide add-on tools to ensure that all these competitive platforms are enterprise-grade when it comes to centralized policy-based device and application management and security. The world has changed since RIM had the enterprise to itself, and RIM needs to keep up to continue to prosper. While keeping up its tradition of being the most enterprise-grade solution, adding cloud services (including a free service for Microsoft Office 365 users), addressing individual-liable ownership issues, courting SMBs with less expensive versions of its management platform, and opening up to allow more partnerships and federation arrangements are all important initiatives.

• Market Impact: Moderate on enterprise mobility as businesses are having to allow in iPhones and Android devices whether they like it or not, and beyond the OS and middleware stack, it is the BlackBerry device platform itself that still needs to keep up with the competition. Clearly businesses that worry about management and security will do what is necessary to add on software or managed mobility services to deal with these issues. While these new services help ensure that RIM will still have a place at the table, competitive platforms are here to stay.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

| Client access - Full report in Mobility Services | More information

Top

Top