RIM Examining Cross-Platform Support For Their Corporate Capabilities

Remember a few short years ago when everyone in the business world carried a Blackberry? They didn’t really have a choice, it was the one “secure business device” that their IT department supported. However, in recent years that corporate culture has started to change and now many IT department are offering iOS and Android support, allowing employees to choose which devices they use and how they use them. Realizing this change in corporate culture, it appears that Research In Motion may be adding new focus to their approach, cross-platform support to be specific.

RIM Vice President Pete Devenyi shared the following tidbit of information:

BlackBerry is and will continue to be dominant in most corporations, [but] it’s not going to be the only device given the fact that consumers have the choice to bring in their own devices and IT departments are often letting them in. So there’s a question there. Do those corporations have to manage those devices differently or is there the possibility that RIM might extend capabilities to make it easier for those corporations to manage those devices as well? … If the right thing to do is to extend a subset of those [BlackBerry] capabilities to be able to manage other devices, it’s worthy of a conversation

On the one hand, it’s not full openness by RIM as Devenyi appears to be speaking more in terms of device management, however it could mean that some of Blackberry’s proprietary services, such as their email platform will eventually be licensed for use on Android, iPhone and other Smartphone devices in the future.