Along with their host of secure mobile services, BlackBerry’s new smartphone may just be the ticket to putting them back in the game.
BlackBerry has been fighting an interesting battle these past few years. While virtually every other phone manufacturer has been pegging their strategies around their handsets--especially those that address the mass markets--BlackBerry has been quietly staying true to their strengths of being the go-to device and platform for enterprise mobile communications.
With tens of phone models launched by dozens of brands at the Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 price ranges, we’re witnessing frantic activity from brands that are keen to carve out a space in the lucrative smartphone surge that the country is seeing: with about 150 million smartphones currently in use, that number is fast increasing given the drop in entry price point.
While features like 4G, dual SIM, HD screens and good cameras have been the mainstay of these phones, there’s one criterion that hasn’t really been key priority: security. With BlackBerry’s new Leap phone launching tomorrow, that is precisely what they aim to bring up front and center for consumers everywhere.
We had a chance to experience this phone recently at a meeting with BlackBerry India. More than just the hardware and the design, it is its role in the larger ecosystem that makes for an interesting story. This all-touch phone sports a 5-inch HD display with rounded edges, reflecting a design language that seems to be de facto these days (hint: iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S6). It is based on BlackBerry OS 10, which can also run Android apps, and has a 2800 mAH battery that is supposed to be good to go for 25 hours of heavy use.
But BlackBerry has never been just about the hardware. Their ecosystem is steeped in systems that facilitate productivity while securing data and keeping it available across devices and systems. For example, services like WorkLife and ManyMe enables a single phone SIM to be ‘virtualized’ up to 9 identities, each with a unique phone number. This makes managing work profiles and personal profiles simpler, as even the billing for these numbers is segregated. Services like SecureSmart uses facilitates protected voice calls between two phones running the service. An SD card is used to encrypt the voice call that is sent over a regular carrier. BBM Protected is a feature that enables using third-party apps like Whatsapp so that these popular tools can be used within a work environment without the fear of confidential data being leaked out over it.
There was a time when BlackBerry’s systems were as closed as Apple. But ever since they began offering BlackBerry Enterprise Services to other mobile platforms, Android, Apple and even Windows users could also tap into the security that BlackBerry phone users boasted of. Now with BlackBerry Enterprise Services 12 moving to the cloud, it should be even easier to deploy these services to medium and even small business. BlackBerry maintains that the mobile security chain is strongest if every component link is BlackBerry-protected. So while its services can be deployed across other phones, security level is highest if a BlackBerry phone is utilized, of course.
The BlackBerry Leap continues this tradition using a refreshed, all-touch device that is more in line with what consumers expect to see today. The only thing they need to get right now is the price. Up until now they have been off the mark--often by miles--with devices that are priced way higher than one would expect. When they launch their pricing for the Leap later today, it will be interesting to see if everybody’s favourite smartphone underdog is back in the game, and ready to bring the fight to the China brigade.
UPDATE: The BlackBerry Leap announced at a price of Rs 21,490 and will be available at all BlackBerry Exclusive Stores.
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