Research in Motion (RIM) hopes to rebound with the upcoming BlackBerry-10 OS (BB-10). The new platform is slated for release in Q1 2013, and is destined to hog industry attention as the company expects it to help them to shore up market share.
Currently, with BYOD fast picking pace, scenario is challenging for CIOs, who are having a tough time securing corporate data, balancing work and personal access online, enabling an integrated mobile office, securing work apps, and managing multiple end-points and platforms.
Talking about the company’s strategy for the new version, Sunil Lalvani, Director-Enterprise Sales, RIM India, said, “For us, it is not just about the device, but about the platform and the user experience that it facilitates. The experience cannot be limited to the applications. The product perception can be altered with as basic a thing as locking the device.”
“We will be leveraging global connectivity, not just in terms of smartphones, but by working with operators across the globe. We aspire to be a critical link in writing the mobility revolution,” said Scott Totzke, Senior Vice President, RIM.
Totzke observed that CIOs across the world are trying to cope up with concerns around what value can they bring to the table with an integrated mobile platform, the users on the other hand, are focused on usability of the new technology. It thus, becomes critical for CIOs to enable consumer applications also on the platform.
Lavani elaborated that for a CIO there are top three considerations while selecting a mobile device platform — security, device management capability, and operating system. “This is what we have been hearing from our users and that is what got us in line while we started working on BB 10. The new offering is about delivering a mobile device management platform that takes care of the mobility , security and BYOD challenges at one go, and also the delights for enterprise and personal usage at the same time.”
The power of 10
Lalvani said while designing BB10 they had kept in mind what enterprises love about BlackBerry and they were not compromising on any of those. “More than devices, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) architecture is extremely secure and reliable. The BB-10 platform is a complete package of the BlackBerry enterprise server, balance server, mobile fusion, mobile voice system and various enterprise apps.”
A user working for a company does fall under the enterprise user category, but he too has consumer preferences. Incorporated in the new products are features like BlackBerry Balance, which helps users create two profiles—for home and work, on the same phone, and BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, which is a powerful tool for next-gen BES.
With the new platform, RIM will also bring BlackBerry Flow, the user interface that they promise to be extremely fluid. “The user interface is altogether a new paradigm and does not require a user to go out of a particular application to access another,” Lalvani stressed, adding that there are many enterprises that swear by QWERTY experience, and they were taking all of that to the next level.
Totzke informed that BB-10 was still underdevelopment and was being tested with about 50 cellular carriers across the world, including the Indian service providers. In India, RIM has partnered with nine carrier partners.
The Indian dream
Lalvani pointed that the Indian market is not very different from the rest of the marketplace. In the Indian context, there is a unique opportunity for them to grab. According to a recent market research, for Q1 ‘ 2012, RIM’s market share in the Indian market hovered around 12-13%.
“In India, we have succeeded in making space for ourselves as Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution provider, offering a unified platform to connect the mobile enterprise. Our vision, however, is to go beyond that. We are looking at how can we expand our horizon to smart grids, corporate deployments and penetrate in tier 2 and 3 cities for growth of the enterprise solutions,” Lalvani said.
RIM wants to increase presence in 300 cities from current 250. The company presently distributes its smartphones through Redington and Ingram Micro, and is now looking to expand its base of 50+ certified commercial partners, but do not have any particular target at present. “We will add SIs and VARs who want to grow into the mobility space,” Lalvani informed, adding that India, teeming with young users, is going to be an interesting market to watch.
The company that has been putting in strenuous efforts to stay relevant and strong in the market has panned focus towards the youth in the country. It is not just with BB-10, in fact RIM’s campaigns over a last couple of years have been youth-focused, it has tasted some success with BlackBerry Messenger becoming a hit with the young users.
“India has nearly 250 mn youth averaging 24 years, which is entering the enterprise work environment. They use multiple devices and are scouting platforms to access enterprise applications and social media seamlessly—thus driving the BYOD trend,” Lalvani reasoned.
In tune with the trend in the developed world, BYOD is considered a bigger security risk in India as well, which RIM is trying to address with the new platform.
The company that had hit headlines in India in the past over the security issues, maintains it will co-operate with Indian authorities on “lawful interception” as the company cannot grant access to the entire traffic on its network
The success of the platform will however, depend on its compatibility with existing BlackBerry devices. Industry watchers said adoption of BB10 as a platform by other vendors would also be a critical piece in solving this maze.