Trend Micro™ recently published a report that seeks to address the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend in the workplace by evaluating leading mobile platforms based on security standards and corporate integration. “An increasing number of companies are opening corporate networks and data to consumer mobile technology,” states the report in its Executive Summary. Although “BYOD” may be the buzzword of the year, securing these devices is a major concern for IT administrators – and on the other side it makes perfect sense for employees to seek to bring their own smartphones to work. Their own individual devices have the capability, they’re familiar, and they avoid the dual-device headache that some have faced.

The report published by Trend Micro seeks to inform those facing this trend to ensure that they are able to tackle it effectively, efficiently, and securely within their organizations. Sizes of business vary, as well as industry and information sensitivity, but data security is important to all businesses employing mobile solutions today. And in some cases, keeping data secure can be a make-or-break scenario hinging on retaining a competitive advantage.

The report rates the BlackBerry® 7 OS as having the highest overall rating for security out of all four major smartphone platforms. For example, it was the only operating system with any rating at all for device firewall. Overall, Trend Micro wrote: “Corporate-grade security and manageability make this [BlackBerry] platform the option of choice for the most stringent mobile roles.”

Okay, so it’s secure. But I need features and usability!

This is where many authors stop. The platform is demonstrated as secure, a clear conclusion is presented, and reputable sources cited. However, we know that you and your employees need so much more than this. The underlying issue behind BYOD is that employees want to use the incredible features included in these smartphones: the camera, webmail, Facebook®, Twitter®, LinkedIn®, blogs, and more. Today our mobile phones allow us to be constantly connected to all aspects of our life – including during the 9AM-5PM timeframe.

What we’re looking at here is a set of requirements for a mobile solution within your organization. I’d outline them something like this:

• Supports multiple mobile platforms, allowing use of personal phones for work
• Able to connect these devices to your infrastructure and mail servers
• Includes manageability of your data – remote wipe, provisioning, security measures, and more
• Leaves personal data untouched
• A feature-rich experience, including access to social media, while limiting risk to the company

This isn’t the first time these requirements have been presented. This is what’s happening right now in corporate mobility. It’s also what has been requested of the BlackBerry platform as a trusted provider of mobile solutions with. Here’s what we came up with:

BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion

Strike off number one, two, and three from that requirements list. BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is designed to allow you to support multiple platforms including BlackBerry OS, iOS® and Android™ smartphones and tablets. Secondly, it allows you to connect these devices into your infrastructure to setup corporate mail, IT policies, data encryption, and more. And thirdly, it allows you to set data management policies.

BlackBerry® Balance™

This is where BlackBerry really shines. Most BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet include this feature, and this one smashes requirements number four and five out of the park. BlackBerry Balance technology creates a secure perimeter within the OS of a BlackBerry device, which separates work and personal apps, data, accounts, and more. The end user experience is designed to be seamless, and within the inner workings, specific settings can be created to prevent data from passing from the corporate area to the personal. This allows for a full-featured experience for employees who use social media and other personal apps and accounts. It also saves the cost of deploying corporately owned BlackBerry devices if employees have their own BlackBerry smartphones that can be brought into the company network and activated with BlackBerry Balance technology.

Moving forward from here: industry trends, and our roadmap for the future

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and BlackBerry Balance technology are designed to help organizations cut costs, and minimize security risks while maintaining a great user experience, and to set you up for the future in response to fast-moving trends in business mobility. From here, we do what we do best: closely watch for new challenges around the corner, listen to our business customers to understand what they need, and craft solutions to keep you one step ahead.

In terms of specifics, it was fantastic to hear our CIO, Robin Bienfait, and Alan Panezic, VP of Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at RIM, take the stage at BlackBerry World™ 2012 to make a few exciting announcements. Within the next year, they shared, BlackBerry Mobile Fusion will be offered as a cloud-based solution, as well as via partners as a hosted solution. This will make it even easier to face what’s being thrown at you, simplify deployment, and present major opportunities for our many partners and resellers. We’ll be diving into these announcements to unpack what they mean for you in the coming months. I can’t wait to get started!

What’s one challenge that your organization is facing in terms of mobile devices? Share in the comments below.

Here’s a guest post today from Nader, a BlackBerry® security advisor – enjoy! – Ed.

Many aspects of the BlackBerry solution have been built around manageability. With the advent of consumerization and ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) in the enterprise, the need to manage two personas on the same device has become evident. On one hand, enterprise data and applications need to remain secure and separate from personal content. On the other hand, a litany of consumer apps, emails and personal details must remain private from all, including the enterprise.

BlackBerry® Balance™ technology is our answer to that dual persona challenge. It was launched last year on BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry® 6 OS (and higher) and is now integral on BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0, allowing employees to use their personal mobile devices for work without compromising the enterprise’s need for security and IT controls. With BYOD, the total cost of ownership for mobility in the organization can decrease, and moreover, employees can benefit from the efficiency of BlackBerry protocols and inherent data compression on BlackBerry smartphones, which can also help to decrease an organization’s mobile data plan costs.

To achieve the separation of work and personal data on a single device, some mobile solutions require employees to allow IT administrators to manage everything on their personal devices. Others create a device “container” or “sandbox” to store business data and run business applications, which can make switching between work and personal applications clunky, confusing and time-consuming for users.

BlackBerry Balance technology is designed to separate corporate and personal data within the operating system, helping to ensure a high level of security with a seamless user experience. BlackBerry Balance technology creates a virtual environment within a single device that supports the concept of Privacy by Design, embedding privacy proactively into technology itself, for both corporations and end users. This allows businesses to help protect their assets while letting employees install their favorite applications.

We’re continuing to support the principles of Privacy by Design and our product cornerstones of security and manageability by developing new tools that anticipate the complexity of your organization’s environment. BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 builds on BlackBerry Balance technology as it adds support for both personal and corporate email, contacts and calendar information. The BlackBerry® Device Service in BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion (now available) introduces the ability to manage the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in your organization. With its expanded administration tools, you also have IT policy rules and IT administration commands that allow you to control mobile work data and applications. Future updates of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion will be designed to allow you to manage Android™ and iOS devices, as well as BlackBerry 10 devices when those products launch. You’ll be able to centrally control how any of those supported devices (plus the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet) can access your organization’s environment. This means that as employees bring the latest BlackBerry smartphones and tablets – and other devices -into your organization’s environment, you’ll be able to support a BYOD policy with more confidence and ease than ever before.

How has BlackBerry Balance helped your business face BYOD challenges? Share in the comments below.