A Q&A with RIM SVP Peter Devenyi
Research In Motion said recently that it will extend some of the secure mobile device management (MDM) capabilities of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) to other mobile platforms later this year, starting with Apple iOS and Google Android.
To learn more about the strategy, I recently chatted with Peter Devenyi, senior vice president of email and management platforms at RIM. He explained that not all BES capabilities would be available for the other platforms and why, and discussed RIM’s choice to acquire MDM company Ubitexx as its path to managing other devices. What follows are excerpts from our conversation, edited slightly for clarity and length.
CLEAR CHOICE TEST: How to protect smartphones and tablets
What are your intentions with cross-platform MDM? Are you doing it as a token gesture, or will it become a true area of focus for RIM?
DEVENYI: It absolutely is an area of focus for RIM going forward. We’ve been considering it for a while based on customer feedback, particularly over the past several months. Customers love the BES. They realize BlackBerry and BES stand alone because they are built into the end-to-end BlackBerry ecosystem. But they are looking for us to manage other devices to the extent that those devices are manageable and to do it in as consistent a way as possible, with a single pane of glass.
What’s the strategy behind the subset of BES features you’ll support for other platforms?
DEVENYI: Our objective, clearly, is not to address limitations or restrictions on other devices that would make them more competitive with BlackBerry. We intend to exploit MDM APIs to the extent that Apple exposes them. Users want one pane of glass, but not [all platforms will] necessarily have all the same features.
You mentioned support of iOS and Android devices. What about other platforms, like Windows Phone 7, Symbian, WebOS?
DEVENYI: Today, Ubitexx supports Windows Mobile 6.5 and Symbian. We don’t have immediate plans to support those platforms, though architecturally, we are poised to extend support to those and other platforms.
Why did you choose Ubitexx as your MDM acquisition?
DEVENYI: What we liked about Ubitexx was its overall architectural design. We could easily, coherently integrate it with the BES and do it relatively seamlessly and quickly. We weren’t necessarily looking for the strongest marketing organization or the most well known. We needed good strong technology, a cultural fit and synergy.
What will the unified product look like?
Project Fuse — our internal code name — involves our fusing BES and Ubitexx under one interface to talk to both domains. About 20% of BES [capabilities] will be exposed, but they will be the ones customers use about 80% of the time.
What’s RIM’s time frame for supporting other devices with MDM?
DEVENYI: Today, [the Ubitexx MDM] product is available as a free preview for up to 10 users. We host it in a data center and customers can use it to manage up to 10 devices to get a feel for Ubitexx and the technology.
We’ll be in beta with [the fused version] at the end of the summer. General availability product will be toward end of year.
