BlackBerry has released additional details about its more secure BBM Protected messaging service that was originally introduced during Mobile World Congress in February. BBM Protected, like many secure messaging apps, will be encrypted but BlackBerry takes that type of security even further than most. Rather than just encrypting a conversation, each message that BBM Protected processes will have its own key, making it far more difficult for someone to steal and decode an entire message string.
BBM Protected will be part of the coming eBBM suite of products that BlackBerry is releasing solely for its enterprise customers. Two videos have appeared on CrackBerry’s YouTube channel from the recent BlackBerry Experience event in Washington, D.C., that show how the service is set up by IT admins and how regular users take advantage of the security features.
Improving Something Good
There are many messaging applications available for smartphones but one of the most popular across iOS, Android, and BlackBerry is BBM. With 85 millions users each month and 65 percent of those who use it everyday, adding new security features to BBM means that thousands of people with corporate BlackBerry accounts will benefit.
For many years, BBM and the entire BlackBerry platform were viewed as being the best option for corporations and while that has changed, adding new enterprise security features to the software could allow the company to turn itself around.
BBM is not nearly as popular as other messaging applications like WhatsApp but it may end up dominating the secure messaging industry since corporations will have yet another reason to switch to BlackBerry or, in some cases, back to BlackBerry. Companies that will find the service useful are also the ones paying extra for access to the enterprise security features which means that BlackBerry is building up both the BBM app and one of its major revenue streams.
Shifting Focus
Under the control of former CEO Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry had begun to focus heavily on consumer devices but with relatively unsuccessful software and hardware product lines, the company was failing. Since then, CEO John Chen has turned the company around, and is doing so with a greater focus on enterprise customers who are still interested in BlackBerry products and tend to pay more.
BBM Protected is the company’s first part of the eBBM suite, which will eventually encompass a range of products that are meant solely for enterprise customers. By growing that side of BlackBerry, Chen is attracting new people to applications like BBM and is turning current enterprise customers into evangelists, something that BlackBerry was unable to do in the years prior to Chen’s promotion to CEO.
BlackBerry is not completely moving away from consumer products however. Even BBM Protected will be available to regular customers in 2015, but the enterprise suite is taking up more of the company’s time and focus.
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