BlackBerry Balance Enables a True Work and Personal Experience on BlackBerry 10
BlackBerry Balance is BlackBerry’s cutting edge solution to the problems that arise from the BYOD trend; challenges which have developed over years of smartphone industry growth. With BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Balance technology, Work and Personal perimeters are created on the smartphone to separate and secure the corresponding apps, connections, and data. The benefits of such technology are significant and relevant.
Security for Administrators, Freedom for Employees
Businesses are now enabled in their mobile strategies; they can connect employees to their infrastructure and promote the use of business applications and behind-the-firewall connectivity. Employees can be more productive, devices can be ultra-functional, and organizations can truly move their work mobile. The work perimeter can be controlled and managed at a granular level with all of the robust functionality that the BlackBerry enterprise mobility management solution provides. The data in each perimeter is protected. It reduces risk significantly, and creates a situation where BYOD can be embraced for all of its benefits.
Employees can be free from work-related restrictions on their mobile devices. Download apps, use the camera, message friends and family, and browse wherever you please. What you do on the personal perimeter of the smartphone is up to you, and your work doesn’t need to control, restrict, or manage this side of the device. It can be truly yours to own, use, and customize. When your organization manages or in the event they need to wipe the corporate perimeter, your information is left intact just as it was before.
How is BlackBerry Balance Enabled?
The recently launched BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 allows IT administrators to configure BlackBerry Balance settings on employees’ BlackBerry 10 smartphones. As an end user, you’ll have the opportunity to set up your work email account, and in the process set up the work perimeter, which is locked by a BlackBerry Balance password that you create.
Toggling between Work and Personal is as simple as swiping down anywhere on the application screen. In the Work perimeter a behind-the-firewall connection is created, allowing you to access work apps through BlackBerry World for Work, an app store created by your administrator, as well as work versions of many applications. If you’re currently running a few apps when you switch perimeters, they’ll remain as Active Frames, allowing for rapid multitasking between work and personal apps.
BlackBerry Hub and the Calendar app are two examples of apps that straddle this barrier between Work and Personal perimeters. Both personal and work email can appear in the Hub. The same applies to the calendar. If BlackBerry Balance is locked, only personal items will appear, alongside work items, which are listed as “locked item”. A simple tap on any locked item will prompt you to enter your password.
The BlackBerry Balance Experience on BlackBerry 10 smartphones
Check out a quick video demonstration of how you can interact with BlackBerry Balance functionality on your BlackBerry Z10 smartphone:
Summing Up…
BlackBerry Balance provides a better experience for end users, and helps to mitigate risk and provide a higher return on investment for businesses. BlackBerry have designed the tools required to tackle current trends in workplace mobility, and are constantly working on helping you tackle future trends that are just around the corner.
There is parental control for that.
Although, I would have loved it if they would have offered the same compartmentalization to everyday consumers as well. With a lot of kids today handling devices at home, it would have been awesome to have the same device that you could lock and allow certain apps and hand over the device to kids at home to surf, play games, etc. knowing that there would be no way that the kid would be able to access your files or FB or whatever you wanted to block
I see. Thanks for clarifying.
@ tinysalmon – Nope. Balance actually gets activated the moment your device is registered on BES. For consumers like me (who run on BIS currently), I don’t think we need or will see the Balance feature.
So without BES then no Balance eh?