RIM's BlackBerry Mobile Fusion To Compete With iPhone & Android

Research In Motion has long touted enterprise-level security and management as a selling point of its BlackBerry devices, a key differentiator from the Apple iPhones and Google Android smartphones flooding both the business and consumer market. Now, it seems, RIM has decided to extend its branded management capabilities to platforms beyond BlackBerry, in what could represent a significant strategy change for the company.

"We are pleased to introduce BlackBerry Mobile Fusion -- RIM's next generation enterprise mobility solution -- to make it easier for our business and government customers to manage the diversity of devices in their operations today," RIM vice-president Alan Panezic said in a statement. "It provides the necessary management capabilities to allow IT departments to confidently oversee the use of both company-owned and employee-owned mobile devices within their organizations," he said.

RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is designed, in the words of the company’s Nov. 29 press release, to “simplify the management of smartphones and tablets running BlackBerry, Google Android, and Apple iOS operating systems.” In other words, IT administrators and CIOs will have the ability to control all those devices via a Web-based console, from instituting security policies to managing applications. For those shops continuing to support BlackBerry devices, RIM will include BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.3, which offers features such as over-the-air app and software installation.

With BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, RIM has acknowledged the increasingly heterogeneous nature of enterprise mobility, which in turn has threatened the BlackBerry’s longstanding lock on many companies’ IT infrastructure. As the recession slashed corporate budgets for massive smartphone buys, and as the increased popularity of smartphones put more Google Android devices and Apple iPhones in executives’ hands, both small companies and large enterprises saw an influx of personal devices retrofitted for business use.

General availability of the new enterprise server is expected in late March, the company said. RIM's shares climbed 7.5 percent in early trading in Toronto to CAN$18.28 (US$17.76) following the announcement. In addition to BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, RIM is also betting on an upcoming line of “superphones” running its in-development BBX operating system. An exact launch date for those devices has not been publicly declared.