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'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 smartphones to services.
"With
an integrated management console, our clients can now seeof 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 a little more than 12,000 servers one month ago, and more
than 60 percent of US 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 personal apps and content, which could be less secure.
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