BlackBerry To Bring Secure Work Space To iOS And Android

BlackBerry will launch its Secure Work Space solution for iOS and Android devices in Q2, with a formal announcement at BlackBerry Live in May.

BlackBerry Secure Work Space promises to emulate some of the functions of BlackBerry Balance, which is an integral part of BlackBerry 10, and allows enterprises to have control over confidential data while still providing employees with a fully functioning smartphone.

BlackBerry Balance effectively creates two different profiles on any device, with administrators able to create their own application store that host custom apps as well as software from the public BlackBerry App World that has been approved for use in the workspace. Once approved, these applications can interact with other work apps and secure data.

Secure Work Space will operate slightly differently, but will provide secured client applications for email, calendar, contacts, tasks, memos, secure browsing and document editing, while additional apps can be secured and added to the workplace without the need to modify the source code

The Canadian manufacturer claims that the update will save its enterprise customers effort and expense as they will no longer have to configure and maintain expensive VPNs to provide access to data and applications behind a corporate firewall. It hopes that its reputation for mobile security and management will tempt companies who operate in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment.

“With Secure Work Space for iOS and Android devices, we’re extending as many of these (Balance) features as possible to other platforms,” said David Smith, BlackBerry’s head of mobile enterprise computing, in a statement.

BlackBerry’s move comes just as Samsung, whose line of Galaxy devices have gained great popularity, attempts to make itself a more viable option for enterprise customers with security features such as Samsung Knox and SAFE, or Samsung for Enterprise.

[Reuters]