How to successfully manage the BYOD Trend via @alexza of @BlackBerry_ZA

Some tips here via Alexandra Zagury of Blackberry

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is transforming the IT industry and how businesses tackle the challenges of personal mobile devices brought to work by employees.  IT leaders are faced with risks and rewards as BYOD has become the rule rather than the exception.  To minimise risk, they need to balance the demands of business customers with the security of corporate data, whilst providing a consistent experience for productivity.

Alexandra Zagury, MD for South and Southern Africa at BlackBerry® says that some companies see BYOD as a major cost-saving opportunity, while some worry that the obstacles of BYOD is increased information security risk. However the CIO or IT manager feels about BYOD, it is essential for any enterprise to develop a strategy for the inclusion of mobile devices in the business.  This is especially true as the younger connected generation graduate into today’s workforce.

Here are three ways that BlackBerry is helping customers to successful manage the BYOD trend:

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 has evolved in a direct response to the needs of businesses around the world. “We’ve met with CIO’s and IT administrators and are heavily involved in the mobile landscape for business in a wide range of applications,” says Alexandra. “We have built our solution based on their needs and feedback.”

BlackBerry has 50 enterprise customers fully up and running with BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10 in South Africa. Based on current proof of concepts (POCs) and trials in process, it will have more than 150 customers on BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 by mid-year. These include Alexander Forbes, Bowman Gilfillan, Dimension Data, Edcon, Netcare, Tiger Brands, First National Bank, Investec, ABSA, Bowman Gilfillan, AEL, PWC, Aveng Grinaker, Edcon, and Omnia.

In an increasingly complex mobile world, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 provides an integrated platform for large businesses to securely manage mobile devices. It provides a platform for IT managers to manage, provision, and activate devices, administer controls, push mandatory applications, and more, all from a single web-based console.

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 brings together not only BlackBerry® smartphones and tablets, but other device platforms that employees are bringing into the workplace. In particular, network administrators can add and import iOS® and Android™ users, create group memberships, view user and device information, manage applications, and much more.

With the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 version 10.1 update, BlackBerry has added a wealth of new features such as “regulated-level” IT policy controls and settings for government agencies and customers in regulated industries who require an advanced level of security, control and logging of BlackBerry 10 smartphones. It also allows customers to support BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS smartphones from a single server.

With 10.1, BlackBerry has  also unveiled BlackBerry Enterprise Instant Messaging (Enterprise IM) 3.0, a free update of the company’s enterprise instant messaging solution, enabling customers with BlackBerry 10 smartphones to securely communicate over Microsoft® Lync®, Microsoft® Office Communication Server or IBM® Lotus® Sametime.

Provide business end users with seamless separation of work and personal data

BYOD has resulted in a growing need to manage both work and personal profiles on the same mobile device. With BYOD, some businesses have enabled employees to use personal devices for work purposes.

Alexandra adds: “This trend increases the challenges of protecting corporate data, which can be compromised due to malware attacks, personal use applications, and other susceptibilities. BlackBerry 10 has the capability to help address this.”

BlackBerry 10 smartphones managed by BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 have been tightly integrated with BlackBerry® Balance™ technology, which is designed to separate corporate and personal data within the operating system. On a corporate level, businesses can now draw a defined line between work and personal perimeters, thus separating the respective applications, connections, and data. BlackBerry Balance provides end users with a seamless, gesture-based transition between their work and personal data.

Security capabilities across mobile platforms

In addition to the existing enterprise mobility management capabilities of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, BlackBerry is expanding its security capabilities withSecure Work Space for iOS and Android devices.

Alexandra concludes: “This offering extends BlackBerry security to third party devices, essentially creating a separate and secure work space to hold corporate apps, work email, calendar, contacts, and more, without the need for a third party MDM provider, a costly VPN infrastructure, or multiple vendors.”

(Source - Blackberry)