[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

It’s clear that MDM is a major item on the horizon and will be an integral part of IT project plans in the immediate future.

There are, of course, several sessions throughout BlackBerry World™ that touch on MDM, specifically BlackBerry Mobile Fusion. To get the most out of your time with the BlackBerry product experts, you’ll want to come prepared, and deploying BlackBerry Mobile Fusion in your environment in advance of the conference is a step in this direction. Getting your hands on the product, rolling up your sleeves and digging in allows you to prioritize your questions and make the most of the Research In Motion® (RIM®) experts and technology peers from other companies that you’ll have access to on site at BlackBerry World.

How are you preparing for BlackBerry World? Have you downloaded BlackBerry Mobile Fusion yet?

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

There has been one topic of conversation about technology which has been discussed at all of our BlackBerry® Innovation Forum events so far: consumerization. It is a term that has been talked about for a number of years and has generated debate and intrigue at our EMEA BIF series. However, companies are only just starting to become aware of the benefits and challenges they face with the consumerization of IT.

Advances in smartphones and tablets have changed the expectations of technology within businesses. The demand for access to the latest technology is continuing to grow, and the challenge is to be able to provide solutions that satisfy or balance employee desires with enterprise needs for maintaining IT policies and control. Being a leading provider of enterprise mobility solutions, Research In Motion® (RIM®) understands the challenges. In fact, a 2011 RIM-commissioned report (in conjunction with CIO Connect) states:

“The message coming back from our research is loud and clear, in the words of the CIO of a global IT vendor ‘the boundaries between personal and business computing are blurring fast – employees should be able to make their choices in both areas’. IT in the new consumer age will be all about fashioning the user experience rather than operating the technology.”

So what’s the solution?

BlackBerry® Balance™ technology is designed to allow BlackBerry smartphones to be used for business and personal purposes without compromising the security of company content or the privacy of personal content*. BlackBerry Balance technology is designed to be safe and secure, and that means IT managers can be confident in deploying and supporting employee-owned BlackBerry smartphones. BlackBerry Balance technology is also integral to the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0, and supported by BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion (more about BlackBerry Mobile Fusion below). Using BlackBerry Balance technology can:

• Offer greater flexibility to the workforce while retaining control over business data security
• Allow the use of personal apps while restricting copy-and-paste functionality to prevent business information from being inadvertently shared

To learn more about BlackBerry Balance technology, you can watch the video above.

In November 2011, RIM introduced BlackBerry Mobile Fusion – the company’s next-generation enterprise mobility solution and RIM’s entry into the multi-platform Mobile Device Management (MDM) marketplace. Building on years of leading enterprise mobility management solutions from RIM, BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is designed to simplify the management of BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, as well as upcoming functionality to allow management of Android™ and iOS devices.

You can learn more about BlackBerry Balance technology and how it can benefit your business by joining the conversations on Twitter® via @BBEMEABusiness, using the hashtag #BIF11.

* BlackBerry Balance requires BlackBerry® Enterprise Server v5.0 Service Pack 3, BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express 5.0.3 and BlackBerry Device® Software version 6.0 MR2 or higher.

Your employees and colleagues want devices that balance work life and home life. They want to manage their documents and email, and manage soccer practice. And a little BrickBreaker would be nice, too.

These needs are motivating the growing mobile workforce to insist on devices that can balance and multi-task. So, what can your organization do?

The “Consumerization of Business,” often referred to as “the “Consumerization of IT,” is a trend representing a shift of mobile technology ownership and responsibility from corporate to personal. This is not without its challenges for all involved. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Brock of the Global Analyst Insights team at Research In Motion® (RIM®), who reached out to Philippe Winthrop of the Enterprise Mobility Foundation to discuss this trend.

Philippe is the Founder and Managing Director of the Enterprise Mobility Foundation, the organization behind the popular Enterprise Mobility Forum – one of the fastest-growing content and social networks exclusively dedicated to enterprise mobility. It was a pleasure to tap into Philippe’s experience, as he has spent his entire career researching emerging technologies and their impact on the corporate value chain. Check out the discussion below:

Hi Philippe, thanks for joining us today. Can you briefly tell us about your role and a little bit about the Enterprise Mobility Forum?

I am the Founder and Managing Director of The Enterprise Mobility Foundation (“EMF”). The EMF is an independent think-tank dedicated to educating the community and evangelizing the need for mobility solutions in the workplace. We do this via The Enterprise Mobility Forum, which is the largest and fastest-growing website dedicated to enterprise mobility. There, you can read blogs from subject matter experts, download free research, as well as see all of the tweets, videos, news, and Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations on over 50 different topics of enterprise mobility, as well as interact in a social network with several thousand enterprise mobility enthusiasts across the world.

It would seem that consumerization in the enterprise has become more and more prevalent over the past few years. What can we say about it today?

The consumerization of the enterprise is – at least in terms of enterprise mobility – here to stay…for now. Consumerization is all about personal choice, as opposed to the corporate mandates on what employees can and cannot do or use for their work. It’s really all about the employee saying to their employer, “Let me pick the tools that I think will make me most productive as opposed to forcing me to use what you think is best for me.”

Is this good for consumers and bad for organizations, or can both parties benefit?

Without going so far as calling it “organized chaos,” I do believe this can be a win-win situation. Much of the debate around the consumerization of enterprise mobility has historically revolved around individual versus corporate liability of the mobile devices. This has to change. Once we make the full transition to understanding individual versus corporate RESPONSIBILITY, then I believe we will see even greater business benefits coming from mobility solutions in the workplace.

RIM’s response to this trend is the BlackBerry® Balance™ application. Does it address the challenges and the separation of personal and corporate data?

It does from a technology perspective. An important component of finding the right balance (no pun intended) in the workplace is training and culture…all predicated on having the right business policies for mobility. What are the “right” policies? There’s no right answer…organizations just need to figure out what’s most appropriate for them. However, you have to make sure your mobility policies are not so strict that your employees become less effective.

If you had to guess, what would you say the future will look like concerning this trend of consumerization?

As I alluded to a little earlier, the consumerization trend needs to move towards responsibility. That said, I do believe we will, in the not too distant future, have a mobile industry security breach that will be large enough to raise many people’s eyebrows. That breach will make IT managers revisit all their security policies to see how they can better control and prevent information loss from mobile devices. Does that mean we will then shift back to corporate owned devices? Maybe in some instances, but not all. Three years ago, most mobile devices were purchased by companies. Today, most mobile devices are brought in by the employee. We’ll eventually regain an equilibrium that is somewhere in the middle.

Thanks again for joining us today, Philippe. One last question: if you could only give one piece of advice on this topic to IT managers or business decision makers today, what would it be?

Think well beyond the devices. Devices are the means by which you access applications and data – your sensitive corporate data. That’s why you need to manage and secure not just the devices, but the applications and the data (much like the seven layers of the OSI model). Mobility is an amazing opportunity to change the way your business goes about its business…but you must make sure you have a sound strategy in place for the people, processes and technologies that are going to be used in this new ecosystem.

For more on this topic, read the full whitepaper, “The Three C’s of Enterprise Mobility: Convenience, Control, and Co-existence,” on the BlackBerry Resource Center. Comments poll: Is your smartphone owned by you or your employer?