Coming to terms with thinning market share in the devices segment, Blackberry is getting aggressive in services for enterprise business. In conversation with Heena Jhingan, Akash Mainra, Business Lead- Large Enterprise, BlackBerry India discusses the company’s strategy to deal with trends in enterprise technology
Amidst all the split acquisition stories doing rounds what do you think happens to the BlackBerry’s enterprise business?
We are hearing all sorts of versions too. To set the record straight, the CEO has published an open letter to the customers and partners ensuring them that they can rely on us. In a nutshell, we are focused on taking BlackBerry (BB) forward in enterprise market. The entire portfolio is now being developed around that. We are glad that the customers continue to invest in us, which is evident from the fact that our closest competition in enterprise offering has about 5000 installations, while we are talking of 25,000 deployments of BES10 worldwide.
Macro changes in the company definitely impact a company’s strategy. We have been working on the BES platform for about last 13 years. We can manage about 550 IT policies. It is easy to manage 10-15 devices and applications on them, but when we talk about applications for the masses no one can match our levels of security. The enterprises are now getting open to giving the users a choice of what devices they carry. We have taken BYOD heads on. We have evolved our product line to be able to capitalize on the shift.
Typical hygiene requirements for managing a Blackberry and non-BlackBerry device remain the same as—enabling, managing , configuring and securing them. With BES 10 we are now able to extend the same level of security and manageability to the non-BlackBerry devices. We are now working on extending it to Windows as well. The BES10 also has a built-in enterprise app store. What customers love about is the complete Data Loss Prevention (DLP) it offers.
Another thing that differentiates us from the others and something that our enterprise customers like is how we use the native OS and User Interface (UI) of the device. If you look at a couple of other MDM technologies out there, you will find their propriety UI, which is not a good thing. It defeats the purpose of BYOD.
In past our channels were the carriers and the direct sales team of BlackBerry. However, as the models evolved, we tied up with distributors like Ingram Micro, and now they sell complete end to end solution. Later in the year, we are launching our cloud-based solution as well. So, BES10 will be available in cloud, and there will be a combination of a direct sell and through channels. Now the pitch to enterprise customers is about end to end solutions.
Tell us about BES10 adoption in India.
In India, we have already had over 500 deployments of BES10. The largest of ITeS, Financial and FMCG companies have deployed BES10, in fact a lot of mid sized companies, like the construction houses and hotels are using the solution. Somethings have gone very well for us in terms of positioning our Mobile Device Management component with BES10. Selling our MDM solution has been easier because as customers evolve from BES 5 to BES 10 , the moment they install BES10 half the battle is won as what now remains to be done is to simply switch on the MDM features.
In times when Capex is really tight, the early adopters of BB10 have been very senior executives, leading to the need of managing their BB10 devices. This resulted in their organizations upgrading to BES10, this has helped us sell MDM faster. The first movers to MDM solution are mostly the ones driven by compliance like the financial institutions.
Are there case where BES10 is used to manage environments that are dominated by non-BB devices?
You walk in to any enterprise, de facto, there would be a mix environment of BlackBerry, Android and iOS device. In some cases it will be BB dominant and in some it will not be, depending on the customer. Today, if a CIO needs a device management system, these OS will have to co-exist. In many cases they might have BES5 or BES Express, so they don’t want a separate system to manage non-BB devices. Another factor going in favor of our solution is that it offers VPN-less security. BB10 architecture is always on, always connected. To access to secure data one needs to connect to VPN (Virtual Private Network), typically the VPNs are made for desktops and not the smartphones. The connection is not always, however, in our case, it is always on, always connected, after a single sign in. Besides, it is not good for an organization to have hundreds of VPN connections coming from the outside. Architecturally, I think we have an advantage.
What is the average number of devices that you manage for large organizations?
It ranges from 50-1000 devices. Most deployments started as pilots, gradually moving to actual implementations. It has been a learning curve for us also. Enterprises being our heritage, we have been faster to adapt to their needs.
When is cloud-based BES10 offering coming to India?
The cloud solution is being launched in the US sometime end of November, soon it shall come to India too. India launch of BES 10 was quite in line with that in the US. So, I don’t think it will be too late. Besides, India is a big SME opportunity, and obviously potential buyer of these solutions.
The focus is shifting from pure device management application management. How prepared are you to deal with this in BYOD environment as soon the IT heads will ask these questions?
Indeed. According to Gartner, by 2016, the number of applications being deployed on smartphones will be four times than that deployed on the desktops. When we look at the applications and devices in BYOD environment, we find the greater challenge is around IT policy and not a technology. Our BES10 is already powered to handle such situations, where there is a complete demarcation of corporate and personal application, the screening of this can happen at the organizational level.
