BlackBerry Messenger goes Enterprise with BBM Protected

BlackBerry has announced the availability of its enterprise-centric BlackBerry Messenger, BBM Protected that forms part of the company's eBBM suite, BlackBerry's new product family built for users with the requirement of additional security and compliance.

The BBM Protected provides a sophisticated security model for conversations via BBM between two BlackBerry smartphones. According to BlackBerry, BBM Protected is the only secure mobile instant messaging app that uses a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic library for secured channelizing of data.

"BBM Protected enables employees to use the same app to securely message colleagues inside the company for work as they do to chat and share with family and friends outside the company. Secure BBM Protected chats aren't limited to users inside the company; employees can chat securely with BBM Protected users at others companies too - they do not need to be on the same BES server and no federation between servers is required," as per the company release.

Currently, BBM Protected is compatible with all BlackBerry smartphones running on either BlackBerry 0S 6.0 or BlackBerry 10 in Regulated mode. In addition to that, BlackBerry has also indicated its decision to bring the secured form of BBM, BBM Protected for BlackBerry 10 smartphones using BlackBerry Balance and iOS and Android devices later this year.

BBM has always been a crowd's favourite and not very long ago, you had consumers buying the BlackBerry devices (most notably the Curve series) just to get the secured experience of the service. BBM had been rolled out to platforms like Android and iOS earlier this year with Windows Phone expected to gets its own version later this year. Enterprise customers can utilise the uber-sophistication of the messaging service and thereby have conversations of any level without any repercussions.