BlackBerry Launches BES 12, Partners With Samsung To Ride The MDM Wave


BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) unveiled the latest version of its mobile device management (MDM) software called BES 12 last week, as it looks to maintain its lead in the rapidly growing enterprise mobility management market. BlackBerry Enterprise Server allows corporations to remotely manage a fleet of mobile devices and applications while providing encryption, containerization and other features to improve security. BlackBerry is banking on BES 12 to double its software revenues to $500 million by 2015 and has signed a series of agreements with companies, including Samsung Electronics – the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer – to resell or distribute the software. Here’s a quick overview of BlackBerry’s MDM strategy with BES 12 and our thoughts on the Samsung deal.

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Looking To Correct BES 10 Shortcomings, Cash In On MDM Market

Mobile security and enterprise mobility management are receiving a lot of attention of late, as employees bank on their mobile devices and applications for an increasing part of their personal and corporate computing needs. Issues such as data theft, electronic eavesdropping and the increasing prominence of the “bring your own device” trend have made enterprises and mobile companies place a greater emphasis on mobile security. According to Radicati Group, a market research firm, the mobile device management market is expected to more than quadruple to $5.75 billion by 2018. Although BlackBerry is the current leader in the MDM space, with about 14.4% market share according to IDC, it is losing share to rivals such as MobileIron. [1] However,with BES 12, BlackBerry is looking to rectify some of the shortcomings of its previous iteration of the software, BES 10, while adding some new features. For instance, BES 12 will enhance the cross platform capabilities that were already available in BES 10 software while also unifying support for BES 10 with BES 5 – a legacy version of BlackBerry enterprise software that supports the company’s older, yet popular BB7 handsets. This would make it simpler for organizations to operate BB7, BB10 and other third-party devices on a single infrastructure without having to run multiple versions of the software. BlackBerry is moving to a subscription-based model, with BES 12 making customers pay annually, while discontinuing the perpetual pricing model. This should result in greater revenue stability and more predictable growth for the software division.

BlackBerry-Samsung Deal Expands The Potential Market

BlackBerry announced that it would be collaborating with Samsung Electronics to provide its mobile device management solutions to manage Samsung Galaxy smartphone and tablets running the KNOX security suite. As part of the deal, Samsung will also resell BES 12 to joint customers while BlackBerry will offer KNOX support with its premium BES 12 subscriptions. While KNOX is more of a device-centric solution that allows users to create workspaces to separate personal and work data while also providing other device-focused solutions, enterprises still need to deploy an MDM suite in order to manage devices on their network. [1] Although Samsung has sold over 87 million devices installed with KNOX, the uptake for the platform has been somewhat limited with just about 1.8 million active users as reported by Samsung in May. Working together could prove a win-win for both companies. While BlackBerry gains a large addressable market and potentially deeper access to Samsung’s customers, Samsung will benefit from having a more tightly integrated, end-to-end mobility management and security solution, allowing it to solidify its positioning in the enterprise market. In July, Samsung’s chief rival Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) forged a wide-ranging enterprise-focused deal with IBM (NYSE:IBM), which would see the two companies collaborate in areas including software, data security and device management.

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Notes:
  1. BlackBerry, Samsung Join Forces on Mobile Security, WSJ, November 2014 [] []