Masters of Converged Solutions: Sponsored by Sprint
Research in Motion launched a new version 5.0.2 of their Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) showing new features to separate business and personal use on a single Blackberry smartphone. Many organizations struggle to create and enforce policies related to personal use of company-provided devices, or with integrating personally owned devices into enterprise applications, a challenge exascerbated by the rise of consumer-focused smartphones such as Droid, EVO and iPhone.
BES 5.0.2, in conjunction with smartphone RIM OS v6 offers separation of business data and personal data, allowing a company to remotely wipe or lock a phone without affecting the personal data. Apple released a similar feature for separating business data in OS 4 in June. We expect to see similar offerings from Android and Windows Mobile vendors before long.
It’s important to evaluate features that enable work and play on the same phone, while crafting policies that avoid costs of personal use of business devices, or that minimize such costs into a monthly allowance. Keep your eye on continued developments in the mobile management space as workers increasingly rely on their mobile device as their primary means of communication and collaboration.
- About Masters of Converged Solutions
Irwin Lazar
Irwin Lazar is the Vice President for Communication and Collaboration Research at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. His background is in network operations, network engineering, voice-data convergence, and IP telephony. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging technologies in the enterprise in areas including VOIP, unified communications, Web 2.0 initiatives, social networking, and collaboration.
A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Enterprise2Blog. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press and is regular speaker at events such as Interop, VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
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