BlackBerry Messenger Enterprise promises secure comms for business
Your employer's IT department is probably pretty excited about this.
Faulting BlackBerry for its lack of apps or antiquated design ideas was fair, but the firm's dedication to security spoke for itself. The company is going to take that reputation and use it to retool BlackBerry Messenger as an enterprise-level communications platform. Appropriately dubbed BBM Enterprise, the app offers end-to-end encryption for all communication methods; voice, video and text-based comms will all be secure.
"Imagine a police officer using their smartphone to stream live video from a crime scene back to the precinct," a post on the company blog reads. "Or imagine an ER physician who needs quick answers from a surgeon in another office or around the globe... Any information exchanged between the two will be encrypted and comply with HIPAA regulations."
Like Bloomberg notes, the market for such options already has a few offerings like Twilio and Nexmo. BlackBerry specifically calls out the former in its blog post, saying that it isn't an elegant solution because it forces developers to use a few different APIs simultaneously. BBM Enterprise, apparently, will be easier to work with. More interested in the BlackBerry keyboard than you are secure messaging for work? The company's collaboration with TCL, the Mercury, will launch February 25th.
