Blackberry Launches IoT Security Platform

According to Gartner, there are already more than 2 billion connected sensors, trackers and other IoT devices used by businesses for everything from inventory control to smart building management and more. By 2020, there will be 7.3 billion such devices in use by enterprises.

This subset of the IoT, dubbed the Enterprise of Things, needs to be secured and the data it transmits protected. Blackberry’s answer is Blackberry Secure.  It’s a security platform for the IoT that takes a mobile-native approach, offers complete end-to-end coverage, is cloud ready, and will combine key technologies from the company’s recent acquisitions, including Good Technology, WatchDox, AtHoc and Encription. Blackberry stated it plans for the platform to be the foundation for it’s transition to a software company.

“Blackberry is no longer about the smartphone, but about the smart in the phone and in cars and containers and medical devices and wearables and industrial devices,” BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer Marty Beard said in a late afternoon conference call. “We believe this is the most comprehensive mobile security platform for the emerging Enterprise of Things.”

Customers will be able to pick and choose the capabilities they need from a set of five different application suites revolving around the Blackberry BES12 software, the company stated. The platform will be supported with a subscription model. Device management and security can be access from a single front and back-end.

An organization will be able to distribute the platform across their entire enterprise without needing a VPN. Scalability was made a key feature. While the company said they hope Blackberry Secure will open up new vertical markets for them, they stressed that their priority will remain their financial services, healthcare, legal and government customers. The platform will be available at the beginning of January.

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IoT security