The FINANCIAL — BlackBerry Limited and Microsoft Corp. on March 19 announced a strategic partnership to offer enterprises a solution that integrates BlackBerry’s expertise in mobility and security with Microsoft’s unmatched cloud and productivity products.
Through this partnership, the companies have collaborated on a first-of-its-kind solution: BlackBerry Enterprise BRIDGE. This technology provides a highly-secure way for their joint customers – the world’s largest banks, healthcare providers, law firms, and central governments – to seamlessly use native Microsoft mobile apps from within BlackBerry Dynamics.
By making Microsoft’s mobile apps seamlessly available from within BlackBerry Dynamics, enterprise users will now have a consistent experience when opening, editing, and saving a Microsoft Office 365 file such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word on any iOS or Android device. This enables users to work anytime, anyplace, with rich file fidelity. At the same time, corporate IT departments benefit from a greater return on their existing investments, and added assurance that their company’s data and privacy is secured to the highest standards and in compliance with corporate and regulatory policies, according to Microsoft.
“BlackBerry has always led the market with new and innovative ways to protect corporate data on mobile devices,” said Carl Wiese, president of Global Sales at BlackBerry. “We saw a need for a hyper-secure way for our joint customers to use native Office 365 mobile apps. BlackBerry Enterprise BRIDGE addresses this need and is a great example of how BlackBerry and Microsoft continue to securely enable workforces to be highly productive in today’s connected world.”
“In an era when digital technology is driving rapid transformation, customers are looking for a trusted partner,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Worldwide Commercial Business at Microsoft. “Our customers choose Microsoft 365 for productivity and collaboration tools that deliver continuous innovation, and do so securely. Together with BlackBerry, we will take this to the next level and provide enterprises with a new standard for secure productivity.”
“Along with a number of our peers in the Financial Services industry, we see strategic partnerships like this one as key to enhancing and bringing new products to market,” said George Sherman, Managing Director, CIO Global Technology Infrastructure, JPMorgan Chase. “This partnership will help create a more seamless mobile experience for end-users, which is a top priority for us at JPMorgan Chase.”
Lastly, the companies shared that the BlackBerry Secure platform for connecting people, devices, processes and systems, has been integrated with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Specifically, BlackBerry UEM Cloud, BlackBerry Workspaces, BlackBerry Dynamics, and BlackBerry AtHoc are now available on Azure.
