As businesses increasingly entrust more of their functions and processes to the digital world, BlackBerry says it wants to be the company ensuring that those changes don’t come at a cost to security.
The Waterloo-based company held a conference call Thursday to unveil BlackBerry Secure – a new platform focused on what it’s calling a “mobile-native approach to security.”
In a press release, company officials described BlackBerry Secure as a way to safeguard the “Enterprise of Things” – its term for all connected computerized items within a particular business.
“BlackBerry is uniquely qualified to address this emerging market now because of our deep experience, industry leadership and ongoing product innovation,” CEO John Chen said in a press release.
The new platform works with Android, iOS, MacOS and Windows. It is expected to be compatible with future applications as well as current ones.
The company suggested that its technology could be used across virtually every sector of the economy dealing in potentially sensitive data, from health care to finance.
The BlackBerry Secure project combines the efforst of a number of security-focused companies BlackBerry has purchased in recent years, including Good Technology, WatchDox, AtHoc and Encription.
At least one analyst responded positively to the news.
Paul Treiber of RBC wrote in a note to clients that businesses could see BlackBerry Secure as a low-cost alternative to providing unique, secure devices to employees.
“A healthy app ecosystem increases the stickiness of BlackBerry’s platform in enterprises,” he said.
With files from BNN
