RIM’s Enterprise Unification Plans

Research In Motion (RIM), on the outset looks like it is ready to begin shipping the Blackberry 10 devices in early 2013 but it still has a few roadblocks to work its way through. The existing Blackberry Enterprise Server will not be able to manage the newer Blackberry 10 devices and RIM is going to offer a new Blackberry Device Service (BDS) for the new phones. The current phones will be running with the BES and this sounds like a mess and to make matters worse, RIM is setting up a third, Universal Device Service (UDS) for IT companies to manage iOS and Android devices. In addition, the BB10 platform will work with Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol so there is really no need for an RIM server to handle the devices.

There is however some good news at the end of all this. RIM plans to merge all three services into one that will be called BES again by May 2013. The three way split is only an interim project and is essential to ensure support for iOS and Android devices. It appears that Blackberry 10 and BES 10 are still under progress as the company is refusing to fully reveal them to anyone and is showing the functionalities only in controlled environments.

Currently, if you want to control the use of Blackberry devices, you require a BES server for the front end to your email service for securing the connection between the phones and the email server. The server can also be used to implement various other restrictions. The alternate is to use the Blackberry Internet Service for user email accounts which is a neat way to use the POP and IMAP protocol but restrictions cannot be imposed. For handling Playbooks, the BDS is needed and for securing Android and iOS VPN connections and the like, a UDS is needed.

Once the new Blackberry devices go on sale in 2013, RIM will continue to provide the BES for existing devices while BDS will be used for the new devices. UDS will remain the same and continue with the existing devices in the same fashion. The visible changes will be with the Mobile Fusion Studio that will be renamed to Blackberry Management Studio that will act as the administrative front end portal for all three services. The collection of all these will be named Blackberry Enterprise Service.