Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the Blackberry range of business-orientated smartphones have recently announced the launch of Blackberry Balance. The new software package design was developed to help consumers separate business and personal life or “playtime” on the Blackberry device. RIM sees this software as a way to make their devices even more competitive against the other rival smartphones that has slowly captured an increased market share in the lucrative corporate market.
Once the software launch is in effect, it will allow corporate IT departments to separate business-related emails that are sent through Blackberry Enterprise Server from the user’s personal communications. This includes social networking information and photographs.
Blackberry Balance is the latest step in the battle to keep hold of business customers, who have been steadily migrating to Apple’s iPhone, which employees prefer to use. The development of a range of business related apps for the iPhone has only served to help increase the speed of this ongoing migration.
RIM’s senior vice president for business and platform marketing is Jeff McDowell, recently said “We just wanted to create an innovative solution that allows enterprises to manage the corporate data side while at the same time give their employees the freedom to use Facebook and browse the Web and get their Internet email at the same time.”
McDowell also described smartphones as hosting conflicting “use cases” of the user’s playtime, causing an effect on business life and hoped that this would be a step towards resolving that conflict.