[Homo Erectus]

Review: BlackBerry Balance - Telegraph

great article

[onvisa]

Question, how could i word this.
I have 2 BB , one from work and a personal one, hate to carry to 2 BB's all the time.
If you have a personal and work on the same OS, couldn't RIM accommodate 2 sims cards on BB10?

[Rooster99]

This has GOT to be a huge differentiator for RIM. As a small business owner, one of our challenges is keeping our client information highly confidential, while still providing fast, easy mobile access to company email and our core database and applications. The demos make it look so easy on BlackBerry, and if it's true that no other phone offers this, from a corporate and owner point of view, well ... this is the route I would want to take. And as a business person, this is the approach I would want for my personal device.

This could be a killer feature, and the "tipping point" if RIM gets the rest right, including ecosystem.

- R.

[Shlooky]

This won't change companies from opting for BYOD. BB10 will just be another device that a company will have to support along with Android and iOS.
Fingerprinting will now include BB10.

[Cesare21]

Question, how could i word this.
I have 2 BB , one from work and a personal one, hate to carry to 2 BB's all the time.
If you have a personal and work on the same OS, couldn't RIM accommodate 2 sims cards on BB10?

Why carry around two sim cards when you can do with one? BB Balance is for those who like the ease of using one device for their personal and professional use. Also, highly unlikely RIM will ever do a dual sim card device.

[Rooster99]

This won't change companies from opting for BYOD. BB10 will just be another device that a company will have to support along with Android and iOS.

Agreed. However, there can be a preference or bias within the BYOD world from a corporate perspective.

Again, "all other things beinh equal" this should be a HUGE differentiator.

- R.

[steven4u2nv]

In terms of security and BYOD, I wonder if BB will offer a L or N series phone with a factory camera delete option. I know there are some government agencies and corporations that require their employees to have phones without cameras in certain restricted areas. With blackberry balance, an employee could have a phone with the camera locked down while in work mode, but the user could easily switch to personal mode and have a fully functioning camera while still at work. Having a great smart phone without a camera would be a great “sub” addition to BB line up. That "feature" would really standout in today's market and ensure BB status with the government and enterprises.
Or maybe BB could have a location based service that while the person is physically at work the device will "lock" itself into work mode. Since "The Hub" works in both modes the individual can still receive and respond to personal texts, emails and social media allowing the user to remain connected to their personal lives with out loosing the camera on their personall devices. This option would support the needs of corperations and that of the individual.

[Rooster99]

In terms of security and BYOD, I wonder if BB will offer a L or N series phone with a factory camera delete option. I know there are some government agencies and corporations that require their employees to have phones without cameras in certain restricted areas. With blackberry balance, an employee could have a phone with the camera locked down while in work mode, but the user could easily switch to personal mode and have a fully functioning camera while still at work. Having a great smart phone without a camera would be a great “sub” addition to BB line up. That "feature" would really standout in today's market and ensure BB status with the government and enterprises.
Or maybe BB could have a location based service that while the person is physically at work the device will "lock" itself into work mode. Since "The Hub" works in both modes the individual can still receive and respond to personal texts, emails and social media allowing the user to remain connected to their personal lives with out loosing the camera on their personall devices. This option would support the needs of corperations and that of the individual.

The idea of a software "camera lock" is phenomenal in concept. However, I see heads of security getting really tense about looking at a device and not being 110% sure it hadn't been hacked. If the cammera isn't there physically you can be 100% confident that portion of your security hasn't been breached. So, a phenomenal concept if security people would accept it. Any government/security type folks are to comment on anticipated acceptance levels?

[supraking]

If someone wants to get a camera into an organization or agency to take a photo, they will. If security needs to be so tight as to prevent this from happening, you likely aren't allowed to bring your own device anyway.

Balance is more about the end-user than the organization's security (though it has benefits in that realm as well).

[onvisa]

Why carry around two sim cards when you can do with one? BB Balance is for those who like the ease of using one device for their personal and professional use. Also, highly unlikely RIM will ever do a dual sim card device.

The reason i carry 2 BB's is i don't want the company to have access to all my private phone numbers when i call my freinds.

[kbz1960]

The reason i carry 2 BB's is i don't want the company to have access to all my private phone numbers when i call my freinds.

Isn't that what balance is about? Keeping your work and personal side separate on the same device?

[Seijuro]

Isn't that what balance is about? Keeping your work and personal side separate on the same device?

yes, that's exactly what it's about.

[onvisa]

Isn't that what balance is about? Keeping your work and personal side separate on the same device?

Just to let you know companies have detail billing,so they know who your calling,what time and the duration.If they let you go in the future they can always list "using company phone for personal use".
Your still using the company sim card, makes no difference on which side you are on.
If you where an owner would you ( i wouldn't) be ok with your employees using company phone for personal use?
These days every cents count to stay afloat.

[kbz1960]

Just to let you know companies have detail billing,so they know who your calling,what time and the duration.If they let you go in the future they can always list "using company phone for personal use".
Your still using the company sim card, makes no difference on which side you are on.
If you where an owner would you ( i wouldn't) be ok with your employees using company phone for personal use?
These days every cents count to stay afloat.

I'll let someone that knows more about it answer that. I assume if the user wants to make personal calls it's up to them to insure they do it while using the personal side? Sith? Superfly?

[Cesare21]

I'll let someone that knows more about it answer that. I assume if the user wants to make personal calls it's up to them to insure they do it while using the personal side? Sith? Superfly?

Well it could be both ways and organization specific. My company allows personal calls from the office phone but upto a very reasonable limit. Beyond that, they cut it off the pay-check. And if you want to use a personal number, most people will carry a second device (and switch off the work phone when on vacation).

BB Balance is more geared to those users/companies with BYOD (I'm one of them) so my personal (and only one) device is used for accessing company emails and personal calls and data. So if I have BB Balance then the IT Admin guys wipe off all my company emails (I wonder if documents/attachments for such emails are also wiped).

[drjay868]

Just to let you know companies have detail billing,so they know who your calling,what time and the duration.If they let you go in the future they can always list "using company phone for personal use".
Your still using the company sim card, makes no difference on which side you are on.
If you where an owner would you ( i wouldn't) be ok with your employees using company phone for personal use?
These days every cents count to stay afloat.

Unless I'm mistaken, I thought we're talking a BYOD world where a person is taking a phone they paid for with their own money, and service they pay for monthly, to their orgainization to get linked with the company accounts. In this situation, the company has no right or access to any billing or phone numbers or texts on the phone because it is not the company's property.

I think what RIM may be trying to accomplish is getting a company give people their choice of mobile device to use, but try to encourage or pursuade them to go BB10, or even maybe give some sort of incentive ($50 towards phone cost, or something like that). Still cheaper for the company than outright paying for a phone to give to employees or dealing with a loss of important information due to viruses, lost devices, hacked networks, etc.

[drjay868]

Well it could be both ways and organization specific. My company allows personal calls from the office phone but upto a very reasonable limit. Beyond that, they cut it off the pay-check. And if you want to use a personal number, most people will carry a second device (and switch off the work phone when on vacation).

BB Balance is more geared to those users/companies with BYOD (I'm one of them) so my personal (and only one) device is used for accessing company emails and personal calls and data. So if I have BB Balance then the IT Admin guys wipe off all my company emails (I wonder if documents/attachments for such emails are also wiped).

I was under the impression that Balance is like putting a partition on the phone so IT can go in and wipe the whole partition, including documents/attatchment and emails.

[Cesare21]

I was under the impression that Balance is like putting a partition on the phone so IT can go in and wipe the whole partition, including documents/attatchment and emails.

Partition part I agree, I checked now and I could get an option to save an attachment on to the SD card directly. I'm not sure how this will work on BB10 Balance.

[drjay868]

Partition part I agree, I checked now and I could get an option to save an attachment on to the SD card directly. I'm not sure how this will work on BB10 Balance.

Hmmmm. That's very interesting. I wonder if the partition will carry over to the SD card? Like having to format the card when first inserted. I'll be interested to see how this will work out.

Thanks for the info.

[onvisa]

Unless I'm mistaken, I thought we're talking a BYOD world where a person is taking a phone they paid for with their own money, and service they pay for monthly, to their orgainization to get linked with the company accounts. In this situation, the company has no right or access to any billing or phone numbers or texts on the phone because it is not the company's property.

In this situation i will agree with you.
But i work in construction ind. and how many would BYOD to work? I can tell you none because they don't want to loose or damage, because if that happens they would be crying to the company to replace there phone.

[Roo Zilla]

Who's gonna bring their own Blackberry? Just wait for the company to give you one.

[6120111]

It can also depend on timing/contract terms. Some companies like mine recently invested in BB7 devices to replace older devices. Companies like these won't be upgrading again for several years, so anyone interested in BB10 (like me) would have to consider buying their own BB. I want to see exactly how BB10 Balance works, though, as our current Balance implementation is too restrictive for me to consider spending my own money. I'm not interested in iOS or Android for BYOD, but BB10 could convince me to shell out some cash. Though I somehow need to convince the company to upgrade to BES10 first since it's required for BB10!