Boosting Efficiency with the right Mobile Platform: The Blackberry Way

Most African organizations face the challenge of doing more with fewer resources. One way to streamline your business, boost efficiency and save money is by putting the right enterprise mobility platform in place, says Deon Liebenberg, Managing Director for Africa at Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry®solution.

“Mobile solutions enable employees to stay connected wherever they are, keep projects moving forward, and make decisions while away from their desks,” he adds. If they choose the right smartphone platform, companies can save money by making the most of their employees’ work hours without incurring any significant additional costs.

One misconception is that mobile server software for the enterprise is expensive, but some solutions are free. Many organisations could, for example, roll out BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express – a slimmed-down and free version of the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server – to some or all of their end-users.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express can run in the same environment, meaning that organisations could migrate selected users to the free software. There will be few – if any – additional training or hardware costs for running the two solutions in the same organisation.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express is a free download that can be installed one existing Microsoft® Exchange or Windows® Small Business Servers for up to 75 users. It can be installed on separate servers for up to 2,000 users per server. It works on lower-cost, entry-level data plans, which can save a bundle each year.

What’s more BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express includes more than 35 of the core IT policies found in its bigger BlackBerry Enterprise Server cousin. Policies include password requirements, remote data wiping, data encryption and application restrictions. It’s a free solution that does not compromise on your company’s information security.

Says Liebenberg: “Many companies are rolling out BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express to select end-users and environments where the high-end availability, security and features of BlackBerry Enterprise Server are not needed. By making this move, two things happen.

“First, they’ve just freed BlackBerry Enterprise Server licenses that they can now allocate to employees who do not yet have company BlackBerry smartphones. And second, they can save money on their monthly data costs. It’s a quick win for cost-savings that can be implemented with minimal fuss.”

The new BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express software can be downloaded for free from Blackberry and provides users with secure, push-based, wireless access to email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks, as well as other business applications and enterprise systems behind the firewall.