Blackberry 7 Named Most Secure Enterprise OS For Mobile Devices

Research in Motion hasn’t had much to celebrate in the last few years as the company’s marketshare for its Blackberry line of devices continues to be chipped away by the likes of iOS and Android Smartphones. However despite slipping market share the company’s Blackberry 7 OS has been named the most secure operating system (OS) for enterprise users.

Tech firm Trend Micro examined the top four mobile operating systems and Blackberry 7 scored the highest rank with a 2.89 score that included scoring for built-in security, application security, authentication, device wipe, device firewall and virtualization. In comparison Apple iOS 5 scored a 1.7, Windows Phone 7.5 came up with a 1.61 score and Google Android 2.3 offered a final score of just 1.37 which doesn’t come as a surprise give that mobile operating systems fragmented nature.

Also included in data collection were members from Altimeter Group and Bloor Research.

While Blackberry won top nods for security researchers praised iOS devices for their lack of removable storage and Windows Phone 7.5 for its “robustness.”

Google came out the worst with researchers noting that many devices are still running version 2.x which is a security risk by itself while the OS isn’t capable of providing centralized updates because of its fragmentation.

According to Trend Micro CTO Raimun Genes:

“Against the growing, unstoppable backdrop of consumerisation and BYOD, every mobile device is a risk to business.”

Genes added:

“What is interesting in these results is that, whilst some mobile platforms have evolved very noticeably along enterprise lines, there is still a strong ‘consumer marketing’ legacy in some quarters and this is negating some of the progress made on the enterprise front. Indeed, some of the attributes we have examined in the report are still firmly ‘enterprise-unready’.”

Perhaps better focus on the enterprise sector and less time spent on the consumer market is where RIMs future stands.