By Euan Rocha
TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry launched a service on Tuesday
allowing government agencies and corporate clients to secure and manage
devices powered by Google Inc's Android platform and Apple Inc's iOS
operating system.
The long-anticipated offering, which BlackBerry had said would come
out around mid-year, could help the company sell high-margin services to
its large clients even if many, or all, of their workers are using
smartphones made by its competitors.
The new Secure Work Space feature will be managed through BlackBerry
Enterprise Service (BES) 10, a new back-end system launched at the
start of this year that allows BlackBerry's clients to control mobile
devices on their internal networks.
The company, a one-time pioneer in the smartphone arena, is now
fighting to regain ground lost to Apple's iPhone and Samsung Electronics
Co Ltd's Galaxy devices. To compete, it has rolled out a trio of
devices powered by its new BlackBerry 10 operating system.
It hopes to win back users with the Z10, Q10 and Q5 devices that
were unveiled during the first half of this year. The first
comprehensive look at the success of its turnaround plan will likely
emerge when it reports quarterly results on Friday.
At the same time, it has indicated a shift in emphasis from smartphones to services.
"With an integrated management console, our clients can now see all
of the devices they have on their network, manage those devices and
connect to them securely," David Smith, the head of enterprise mobile
computing at BlackBerry, said in an interview.
"We now also have a secure work space on Android and iOS that allows
our clients to secure and manage the data on those devices as well."
BlackBerry has installed some 18,000 BES 10 servers since the system
was launched in January, up from a little more than 12,000 servers one
month ago, and more than 60 percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies are
testing or using the system.
The feature, when used to manage Android and iOS devices, will allow
IT managers to fence off corporate email, calendars, contacts, tasks,
memos, Web browsing and document editing from personal apps and content,
which could be less secure.
(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
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