RIM has announced the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express (BES Express), a simplified version of its platform tailored for SMEs. The new proposition will no longer charge software and licence fees to small companies with basic needs.
RIM recognises consumerisation
RIM is looking to address two market opportunities with BES Express: smaller companies wanting the ‘enterprise-grade' functionality that BES provides but not needing (or wanting to pay for) all the advanced features; and companies wanting to add employee-owned BlackBerry smartphones to corporate email systems.
This second opportunity recognises the fact that many companies do not provide devices for employees requiring mobility - Ovum research shows that almost 60% of SMEs globally don't provide wireless devices for any employees needing mobile network connectivity for business purposes. In AP region this is even greater. 73% of SMEs in the region don't provide wireless devices for any employees needing mobile network connectivity for business purposes.And, more importantly, in many companies employees prefer to choose their own devices and then ask their IT department to support them. This can cause a major device management headache for IT managers, particularly where multiple device platforms are used.
BES Express will support MS Exchange and Windows Small Business Server but not IBM Lotus Domino or GroupWise (which is supported in the full version). The BES Express solution will be targeted primarily at the low end of the SME market, with up to 75 users on a single existing Microsoft Exchange server in a premise solution.
This announcement represents a major change in RIM's business model, and shows its growing focus on handsets as its main revenue stream. It makes sense since it addresses, to some extent at least, the competitive threat from iPhone and Android devices being brought into the enterprise through the back door and challenging its dominance here.
Mobile UC is still for larger companies or SMEs willing to pay premium
The BES Express supports basic collaboration services such as, email, calendar, contacts, SMS/MMS, and IM applications from RIM and 3rd parties - some of these can be delivered by RIM's new e-commerce platform for which it will provide further details shortly. However, advanced FMC and mobile UC solutions such as BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS), multimedia-rich content distribution from Chalk Pushcast integration, enterprise messaging and social networking, as well as advanced IT policies will be only available in the full version.
If the new platform is expected to drive more handset sales we believe there is also a risk of cannibalisation. It's still early days for mobile UC and collaboration in the enterprise market. Potential customers of the premium platform might question the value of the additional services and decide to go for the more cost effective solution. To what extent this happens and how many new customer the Express version will bring will determine the success of the strategy
OnRelay moves to the cloud - by Evan Kirchheimer
Enterprise FMC vendor OnRelay now offers partners a fully cloud-based Mobile PBX for resale as software-as-a-service (SaaS). OnRelay's new cloud partner program offers its renamed ‘Unified MBX' via hosting in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Twenty companies have already pre-registered with the program to certify for resale in the UK, Nordics, Benelux and the US. In addition to the cloud-based approach, OnRelay also supports a ‘tenanted' model, in which the PBX functionality is hosted in the operator's own network datacentre.
This is a change in direction for OnRelay, which initially focused its sales effort directly on premises-based solutions for large enterprises wishing to mobilise their workforce. OnRelay still plans to persist with this approach, alongside the new strategy. As well as using operators themselves as channels for a white-labelled MBX offer, the cloud orientation enables OnRelay's offer to be opened to smaller resellers, which will typically be serving smaller enterprises with cloud-based mobility. It continues to work directly with telecoms service providers launching FMC offers
