RIM has mentioned BlackBerry Balance a few times as a solution for employee owned phones but even in their announcement yesterday it was a little light on details. They have corrected that a bit with a new landing page on their website at www.blackberry.com/balance. The new page details how different apps are classified and how they handle the separation of data between work and personal uses. It is kind of cool as a feature but is limited to OS 6.0+ devices on BES (Out now) or BES Express (coming this month) 5.0.3.
If you are interested in the solution I would recommend checking out www.blackberry.com/balance or their blog post about the update.
Here are some of the details:
BlackBerry Balance technology benefits
- Improve employee satisfaction and productivity
- Allow use of personal and business apps without compromising security
- Secure business information on employee-owned devices
- Manage IT policies that define a line between work and personal data
- Use existing infrastructure with minimal upgrade requirements
System requirements
To leverage BlackBerry Balance technology, your organization will need the following:
- BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0.3 or later
- BlackBerry smartphones running a supported version of BlackBerry® Device Software version 6.0
BlackBerry Balance features
- Classify enterprise and personal data and applications
- Restrict access to enterprise data from within social networking apps
- Perform an enterprise data wipe with no impact to personal data
- Access the personal phone when the BlackBerry smartphone is enterprise locked
- Prevent copy paste from an enterprise application to a personal application
- Grant role-based administration permission to:
- Delete all device data and disassociate the device from the BlackBerry Enterprise Server
- Delete only the enterprise data and disassociate the device from the BlackBerry Enterprise Server
- Segregate and control personal versus corporate-liable users
And here are some of the resources:
