RIM To Offer Multiplatform Device Management

Aryden sends this quote from an IDG News report: "Research In Motion is taking on mobile device management for Android and Apple iOS devices as well as its own products, introducing the BlackBerry Mobile Fusion product, on Tuesday. BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is designed to simplify the management of phones and tablets that run RIM's current BlackBerry OS and the emerging BBX platform, which is based on the QNX software that currently powers RIM's PlayBook tablet. But Mobile Fusion will also manage devices using the two biggest mobile OSs, Android and iOS."

Comments

Late march?

[Lev13than]

RIM also announced that Mobile Fusion is in early beta testing and will be released in "late March". Not trying to flame here, but does anyone seriously believe RIM's ship date projections any more? Have any of their devices or software packages shipped on schedule in the last two years? Here's hoping that they've learned how to calculate an appropriate Scotty Factor.

Re:Late march?

[Great Big Bird]

I have heard too many bad things from the developer tools to software for managing the things to trust them with much of anything. It seems to me the best thing that they can do is improve their developer tools to a level similar to Visual Studio or XCode, and not release things earlier then needed.

Why would IT departments

[ClaraBow]

Use Mobile Fusion instead of the available solutions for ISO and Android? Does RIM have some upper-hand on management software? Just curious.

Re:Why would IT departments

[bananaquackmoo]

Because you can manage multiple platforms from one place knowing one set of rules? I thought that would be obvious...

Re:Why would IT departments

[AdamJS]

It's transitional (or rather, I assume, coexistent) software for businesses that are already using RIM's offerings. A gamble to keep them sort of under their same umbrella under the guise of "it's part of our overall cohesive ecosystem so it'll work better than option X."

Re:Why would IT departments

[tguyton]

Just a guess, and perhaps an incorrect one, but it'll probably play nicely with existing BES setups. Our large (>35k people) company is still probably 90% BB, and upper management has been very reluctant to move away. We do currently use the McAfee EMM product (shoot me, I know) to sync iPhones with our Exchange servers, but there seems to be an extremely strong anti-Android movement upstairs so no love for us yet. Even though this is a RIM product, I'm all for adopting it here if it will streamline the administering of mobile devices on our network and allow us to use Android devices.

Re:Why would IT departments

[felipekk]

Yes, they do.

It's called an "Installed Base" and it includes pre-existing configuration, know-how and reputation (trying to speak from a BES admin perspective (which I'm not anymore)).

Re:Why would IT departments

[jbolden]

Yes they do. For example BES allows you to tie devices into a corporate PBX so that you can have a dial by name directory that works for cells. So for example you call Ken Black on your BlackBerry the blackberry does a lookup and sees that Ken is using an office phone in Seattle and dials you directly to that. The next day you call the same name and it sees he's in his car. That's not forwarding BTW those are direct connection sending signals back to the PSTN.

Apple and Google don't have anything remotely like that. Many of the PBX vendors have that sort of software but (at least 2 years ago) Blackberry had the best implementation of it.

Re:Why would IT departments

[Just Some Guy]

I see the value in that, but I'm not sure I understand the business case for making it easier for your customers to migrate off your system and onto your competitors. At some point, someone in an MDM-using company is likely to notice that all their users have transitioned to iPhones and Droids and will wonder why they're paying for both Exchange and the RIM software which does mostly just the same thing.

Re:Why would IT departments

[schnell]

At some point, someone in an MDM-using company is likely to notice that all their users have transitioned to iPhones and Droids and will wonder why they're paying for both Exchange and the RIM software which does mostly just the same thing.

Exchange and MDM systems like BlackBerry BES, Good For Enterprise etc. only "do the same thing" if all you care about is basics like push e-mail and passwords/locking. Any company that takes mobile device management seriously (e.g. device application restrictions, e-mail/URL filtering, etc.) will always need more than the basic Exchange functionality. So they are always going to have Exchange PLUS *some* MDM system, but what they won't want to have is Exchange + BES + some other MDM for all the other devices. Since today BES only works with BlackBerries and those other MDM systems work with all the other devices, companies are forced to either support two or choose between them. This is a smart move for RIM, given that those companies might end up ditching BlackBerries so they don't have to pay for two MDM systems and now they can have one MDM system that will work for all devices.

Re:Why would IT departments

[AdamJS]

I think it's around for the same reason that Adobe's official Flash-to-iOS and Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tools and tutorials are.

They want to reposition themselves in the ecosystem such that they'll still have a slice of the pie if/when their primary investment (the actual BlackBerry) fades into obscurity or irrelevance.
Even if this means accelerating that slide.

Re:Oh Dear

[CohibaVancouver]

So they're creating an alternative way of working with the iPhone? Oh man, apple lawsuit incoming.

As of iOS 4.3, Apple has an extensible set of APIs that allow third-party applications to manage iDevice endpoints in the Enterprise (iPads / iPhones, even iPods). Apple refers to this as "MDM" (Mobile Device Management). There are already numerous players in this space.

More here:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/integration/mdm/

So no, no lawsuit coming, particularly as Apple doesn't actually make these tools themselves.

Do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

A thousand times I do not want!!!

Re:Is it still needed?

[robmv]

No matter if your applications are all cloud based, user will save local copies and browsers and other applications will cache data to be used offline or for network performance reasons

Re:Is it still needed?

[jimicus]

Care to explain that in a bit more detail?

Re:Is it still needed?

[Lucky75]

Ummm...what? Do you even know what a "cloud" is, or how phones get emails?

Re:Is it still needed?

[jd2112]

Care to explain that in a bit more detail?

My guess is that it's like Microsoft ActiveSync, only it costs more and does less.

Re:Oh Dear

[cmdrbuzz]

Apple do have a MDM solution in Lion Server called Profile Manager. Its web based (server-side is Python with a Postgres DB).

Its a little flakey, but not too bad once you get over some of the undocumented "features" (like don't put certificates to be pushed out in the Everyone profile, or you'll get exceptions in Server.app)

Re:Is it still needed?

[jimicus]

Not quite what I meant.

What I meant was "how does adding the magic word 'cloud' resolve the issue? You can't just press a button on the phone marked "Cloud" and have it automagically connect to a centralised, Internet-based management system. There are various online storage systems you can sync your phone to (which is essentially what iCloud is), but in and of themselves they don't intrinsically give you a way that you can log on from a PC in head office and remotely configure everyone's phone."

Re:Is it still needed?

[twnth]

Here's the original press release http://press.rim.com/release.jsp?id=5285

For the TLDR crowd, just scroll down to the bullet list and look at what BB Fusion is offering/promising. I can assure you, these are needed.

-secure network
-enterprise management
-on devices that'll play angry birds.
Hopefully that'll keep everyone happy.

Re:Is it still needed?

[jbolden]

That's not the only thing BES is for. Blackberry allows for some rather advanced configuration. For example application management like you would with Windows desktops.

The best thing that RIM can do-

[cadeon]

I like this play. They've realized they have to open up in order to stay relevant at all. Managing other platforms is a great step one.

Step two, though, is to phase out BleakBerry OS and go to a modified Android for their handsets. They could bring a lot of good, missing functionality (and focus) to Android, and have a killer product. Perhaps they could provide some of the apps to all android users (for a small fee, of course).

Naturally the thing to do is to not announce this path, though. It will just make current users run away faster... but if they are able to bring it up alongside the current ecosystem and shift over to the new one cleanly, it could keep them around.

Re:The best thing that RIM can do-

[joshamania]

I like the idea in principle...but I don't see how they move past...and this just baffles me...the whole idea of me sending my emails through someone else's servers when...ugh...it makes my skin crawl.

Okay, my blood's up. Blackberry...it's on.

I don't even know where to start so I'll start with the Curve. I do believe that this product died a very swift death but that it made it out the door in the first place is beyond me. You had to *press down* on the screen to get it to register an input. WHATWHATWHAT? Who greenlighted that? Steve Jobs would have had an aneurysm had someone given that to him and told him it was their new iPhone prototype. Then he would have fired the entire chain of people who allowed that phone to progress beyond some engineer's failed try at solving a problem. They were trying to make the touchscreen feel like a keypad...and that is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Let's put corners on the wheels of our cars so we can have speed bumps all the time...solved that speeding problem...next?

I'll just make a short snipe at RIM/whoever and the whole patent shennanigans. RIM is one of the biggest patent thieves going. The amount of money they've extorted from others sickens me. I could write a novel on this one.

One might call RIM brilliant in one way...getting shedloads of people to have their email forcibly routed to a third party before delivery. None of this is encrypted...so you're giving RIM access to your email account. I don't care what their "license agreement" says or doesn't say, I'll bet there's at least one douchebag at RIM that gets his jollies off by reading CEOs emails. Certainly, email is unsecure to begin with, but to just give them...nay, have them taken by a third party before delivery...WHAT THE FUCK?

ESPECIALLY WHAT THE FUCK when the company has consistently proven to the world that they suck at life. I honestly didn't even know that it was possible to build networks that large with massive built in single points of failure. They're raking in bazillions for RUNNING A FREAKING SERVER FARM and they still manage to fuck it up every year or two. What would you do if your power company failed in its core competency for three days...across an entire continent?

 

Re:The best thing that RIM can do-

[narcc]

Step two, though, is to phase out BleakBerry OS and go to a modified Android for their handsets.

I've heard this before. It's, quite possibly, the worst idea ever. Not only would RIM then become "just another android phone vendor", they'd be giving up QNX. As you already know, QNX is the most advanced,capable, stable, and secure mobile OS around.

Besides, with BBX comes the ability to run Android apps. While it won't convert all apps, the limitations are not nearly as vast as the barely-informed on Slashdot would have you believe. Essentially, if it's a "normal" app (like a game, calculator, whatever) it's very likely to "just work". This gives them some measure of access to the Android app infrastructure, which is a nice advantage.

Re:The best thing that RIM can do-

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post sounds almost entirely wrong.

"You had to *press down* on the screen to get it to register an input. WHATWHATWHAT? Who greenlighted that?"

It's called a resistive touch screen, rather than capacitive. Resistive has it's advantages in that it works even with gloves on (try your capacitive touch screen with that) or with a stylus. It's also more accurate and with a stylus or similar can handle per-pixel detection. Resistive touch screens also work in a much wider range of climates, they work better in a greater temperature range and humidity range. They're also cheaper to produce.

I'm not saying they're better of course, but to write them off because you don't like them simply shows ignorance of their benefits. Sure it may not be for you, but the iPhone with it's capacitive only option may well be a complete non-option for people working in zero humidity or very high or very low temperature environments such as the middle east or the arctic.

"I'll just make a short snipe at RIM/whoever and the whole patent shennanigans. RIM is one of the biggest patent thieves going. The amount of money they've extorted from others sickens me. I could write a novel on this one."

What on earth are you on about? What do you mean patent thieves? Whose patents have they stolen? They're about par for the course in terms of technology patent litigation nowadays but are at least better than companies like Microsoft and also now Apple who over the last year have become little more than patent trolls.

"One might call RIM brilliant in one way...getting shedloads of people to have their email forcibly routed to a third party before delivery. None of this is encrypted...so you're giving RIM access to your email account."

Again this makes no sense. Why do you think India and the UAE were considering banning Blackberrys because their security services had no access to e-mail because Blackberrys have historically been very secure due to things like e-mail and BBM being encrypted? They're also the one company who almost consistently manages to acquire security certification by many governments across the world.

I'm not even defending RIM in general I think they've been a bit slow in the cell phone market, and their server outages are indeed unacceptable, but if you're going to rant about them at least make sure you have a basic clue. You've said so many wrong things here it makes you just look fucking crazy.

Re:The best thing that RIM can do-

[alittle158]

One might call RIM brilliant in one way...getting shedloads of people to have their email forcibly routed to a third party before delivery. None of this is encrypted...so you're giving RIM access to your email account. I don't care what their "license agreement" says or doesn't say, I'll bet there's at least one douchebag at RIM that gets his jollies off by reading CEOs emails. Certainly, email is unsecure to begin with, but to just give them...nay, have them taken by a third party before deliver

Just to be clear, corporate customers running BES have end-to-end encryption. The encryption key is generated by the BES, and not even RIM has access to it. Why do you think all those middle eastern countries were up in arms about wanting to read BB messages? RIM doesn't want to give up this feature, and neither do their corporate customers.

Yeah, that Blackberry Enterprise Server Express

[apparently]

It's so expensive!

I was thinking of something like this ...

[Qbertino]

Ok, so two things play into this here:

1) RIM is behind the curve in mobile devices by one or two generations when it comes to mobile web, app development and app distribution. ... In terms of development it's more like 3+ generations behind. What they *do* have going for them is some of their core software products, namely the calendar and the contacts on RIM devices. I have yet to find one of those that is notably better on devices 4 years or more younger that come from the android of apple camp.
If they'd manage to improve a little and port those apps and maybe a few others, they might have a neat product on their hands for which they could also charge a solid price, since their audience isn't the app-store junk-freemium crowd.

2) If there is anything that really royally sucks compared to *any* quickly self-programmed and hacked solution we had on mobile computers more than 15 years ago it is the 'sync and manage' of calendar, contacts and other such data across mobile devices and desktops in this day and age. Honestly, what is going on in this department - or isn't happening for that matter - has me only this short of switching back to paper & pen based solutions.

Example: My HTC Desire HD is an awesome device, despite it sucking battery like no tomorrow and my blackberry still lasting me a week on one load - alongside with an unusable browser I might add. But the management of contacts and calendar data is a huge pain and reminds me of the mid-90ies era when I used to keep all of that more or less in a single text file. ... Which at times appears to me to be a far superior solution that what I've got now.

If RIM jumps on the software horse and actually manages to deliver where all others have failed up to now, they might just actually have a new business on their hands. I'd be glad to shell out some hard cash for viable, privacy protected calendaring, contacts and data sync solutions and such for current mobile devices and platforms and I'm sure quite a few other business customers would too.

My 2 cents.

Re:I was thinking of something like this ...

[foniksonik]

Just FYI but my iPhone syncs personal email, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, apps, music, photos and OS updates over the air. It also syncs (push) my work email, contacts, address book, calendar and notes over the air from Exchange.

It's done all of the standard syncing for over two years now and the rest since iOS 5 came out.

Other than setting up standard account info it's all 100% transparent to me. Stuff just shows up on the phone.

Re:I was thinking of something like this ...

[cbeaudry]

Same goes for my Samsung Galaxy Captivate with Android 2.x+, using exchange.

Too late

[pudding7]

20 minutes ago I powered down our BES for the last time. Got all my Blackberry users over to iPhones and Android two months ago. It felt so good knowing that my last annual support payment was the final one. It really wasn't even me driving the migration away from Blackberry, it was my users basically demanding iPhones and Incredibles. Nobody here has cared about a RIM launch in ages.

Re:Too late

[uglyduckling]

Yep, same here. Whatever criticisms people might have of the iOS platform, syncing works great. My wife and I publish our calendars and address books to each other and that all stays in sync over 2 phones, 2 MacBooks and an iPad. I find it highly amusing how many of my friends don't sync their devices at all, or when they do it's an couple of hours with the phone plugged into a laptop via USB.

Dear RIM, please focus..

[monzie]

You core strength is ( was? ) good hardware/software integration along with the server side stuff. That is what got enterprises ( and later on , end-users ) hooked on to the BlackBerry. You have always made good hardware. It's the software part that you seriously suck at. This is not because you have bad engineers. This is because you have lost focus.

This "multiplatform device management" BS is just another one of your mistakes. You are using publicly available API's for managing iOS and Android devices.

There are other companies which do this as well.

How are you differentiating yourself? You are not.

What are you doing instead? You are confusing the market by branding it along with Blackberry Enterprise Server and you're also diluting your brand value.

I am not the ( or one of the ) CEO's of RIM but I can summarize what you should do:

- Focus on getting BBX based phones out ( and change the name to something else )

- Focus on getting the Playbook OS 2.0 update out with native email and calendaring

- Don't focus on other side things that dilute your brand value further. You already tried with Blackberry connect for Nokia before and how did that help? It did not. It just helped Nokia's E series get noticed as a serious business phone

- With this MDM, you wont be able to make even the ( bungled-up) difference that you made with Blackberry Connect for Nokia.

Last and not the least for God's sake don't think that Blackberry Mobile Fusion will help sell more PlayBooks just because it works with iOS and Android.

Make sure you get PlayBooks to talk to BES/BIS.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Just your average 27 year old geek without an MBA degree.

Re:What? So I can enjoy service interruptions?

[narcc]

What's with all this "RIM is unreliable" nonsense? Apple's MobileMe has been down more this year that RIM has in the last 10. They've had 3 outages in the last decade, the longest being the most recent (still less than a day for most users). Even then, most of their users were completely unaffected; many of those affected only experienced some slowdowns. Oh, and RIM didn't lose a single message.

RIM is more reliable than your service provider. Hell, the electricity in your house is more likely to go out than RIM's services.

So, when was the last time any decent technology company had a three day outage? Well, I don't know about three days, but in 2008 Apple's MobileMe service was out for 18 days -- and that's a $99/year service! iCloud and Siri have also already experienced outages -- WTF?

Google also suffers from outages, again, far more often than RIM. All things considered, RIM is the only company that you can seriously rely on to provide consistent service.

Re:Is it still needed?

[jbolden]

Yeah, actually your desktop does need to be managed, you do it by hand. Try managing 10,000 desktops and then we'll talk about why you might want management software.

Re:What? So I can enjoy service interruptions?

[Just Some Guy]

Apple's MobileMe has been down more this year that RIM has in the last 10.

Asking because I genuinely don't know: how much of that MobileMe downtime has affected customer's messaging? Were the outages in, say, MobileMe's photo gallery website or in their mail system?

in 2008 Apple's MobileMe service was out for 18 days -- and that's a $99/year service!

Forgive me for quoting AT&T, but they were the only carrier who published a rate chart that I could find without digging around longer than I'm willing to. It looks like their cheapest "BlackBerry Personal" data plan is $360/year. That plan pays for more than just BlackBerry messaging, just as MobileMe includes more than just email, so I'm not sure how'd you'd calculate the relative marginal costs of those features.

iCloud and Siri have also already experienced outages

...neither of which caused messaging slowdown or delays. You keep comparing apples to oranges without comparing Apples to BlackBerries. How much have those respective companies' messaging systems - just messaging and not web hosting or cloud music storage! - been down in the last 5 years? How much do their customers pay them for just messaging - not web hosting or cloud music storage! - each year? Without that data, comparisons are meaningless.