BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite Reviews

Our use cases were only for mobile users. We had iOS and Android users for this. It was an on-prem deployment, and being in the UAE region, the concerns that were addressed with this were data privacy and data security. Data security was the most important thing, and that's why we deployed Blackberry and gave access to email, calendar, and certain enterprise applications.

We were most probably using version 11.

It helped us in getting faster turnaround times and responding to our customers from anywhere.

Access to the emails on the go was most valuable. Having access to your emails in a secure way is one of the most important features of this solution. Blackberry ensures data security, and as a user, I can use it while on roaming or wherever I am.

I also found it pretty easy to use.

The installations on the device could be simpler. It is a good solution, and all the features are there. So, there isn't a lot to improve. I'm sure they already have their thought process on how to improve it.

It was used for about eight years in my previous organization, and I used it for four years. 

It is a stable solution.

Scalability was slightly complex because we had to wait for licenses to come before the configuration. Other than that, it was all good. 

We had more than 700 users. We didn't have any plans to increase the usage because we were migrating from Blackberry to another solution.

We got support whenever we required it. There was hardly any delay because there was an integrator and a middleman. So, the support was good.

We used Citrix. We switched because Citrix was completely outdated. Not everything worked on Citrix. So, the transition was from Citrix to Blackberry and then to AirWatch.

It was fairly complex, especially for the on-prem installation. It could be made simpler.

In terms of duration, it probably took about three weeks to a month, but I'm not sure because it has been a while.

We had an integrator at that point in time from the company from which we purchased the solution.

For deployment and maintenance, we definitely needed one person because sometimes, we faced downtime with the solution, and sometimes, the software was going out of life. We had a team that was managing and maintaining the solutions as per the KPIs.

It was on a yearly support contract, and the licenses were perpetual.

There was also the implementation cost and the support cost for the integrator.

You can always get a 30-day demo to start with. You should test it out small rather than going straight away big with a solution like this.

The biggest lesson learned from using this solution is that you have to be on your toes because anything can go down at any point in time. Blackberry is one solution that is used by the top heads of the company, so that's pretty sensitive.

I would rate it a seven out of 10.

My clients basically use the solution to manage their mostly mobile devices, and, increasingly, their desktop systems also.

My customers find that they don't have to worry about managing their VPN connections for their mobile users. BlackBerry handles all of that, as opposed to if you're just using Office 365. In that example, you could manage mobile devices with Office 365 Intune, except that then you have to worry about the VPN connections you have. You have to manage all those connections to your internal sources. BlackBerry basically handles all of that for you.

The Cylance integration is, if they do it right, excellent.

The technical support for the solution is excellent.

The integration with Cylance is not complete yet. Cylance does mobile security, which Blackberry bought. Blackberry is currently trying to reprice this solution with Cylance integrated within it, however, it's not complete as far as I can tell. They need to better integrate their mobile security features.

One fault that BlackBerry has is its salesforce. Their direct salesforce department is changing its salespeople constantly. One client I had, over a period of about three years, went through four salespeople. That continuity is a problem, in terms of dealing with the customers.

In the end, I become the only constant - myself, and the support team. The support team helps because they're basically dealing with the customer day-to-day and answering questions. It's an issue that BlackBerry needs to address. BlackBerry is making money. I think they're financially okay. 

I've been working with BlackBerry since 2003. I've been working on the Enterprise Mobility Suite for 15 years.

They have a big install base, so the solution is pretty stable. The problem is they keep trying to integrate new items. They keep buying new companies and integrating them into the platform. It's one thing to have it properly integrated. It's another thing to have it presented properly to the customer. The customer needs to become convinced it's a worthwhile addition.

The solution is very scalable. They're often deployed to large organizations. Scaling doesn't seem to be an issue for the product.

I've had clients that had about 18,000 users on Blackberry previously.

The support team is very good. They're very helpful at dealing with customers and answering their questions. My clients have been satisfied with their level of service. They're generally easy to deal with and more reliable than the salesforce.

The basic UEM is pretty straightforward. The problem with the initial setup is now with this new Cylance integration. It's not clear how that's going to go, as they just released it recently. I've only got one customer right now, who I've renewed a BlackBerry contract for. I'll have to see how that goes with the customer.

One of our current clients is using the management suite, which is the basic BlackBerry UEM suite. He bought it last year and he's been a BlackBerry client for 15 years with me. BlackBerry introduced this new capability to raise the price by almost double, and the client was unhappy. 

They didn't change the price, but they gave me more margin so I could discount the price to the customer. The customer now has signed on and he hasn't started to deploy the new suite yet, but he will in the next couple of weeks. At that time, I'll follow up with him in a couple of weeks and find out how it went.

I basically sell the solution and help explain to customers what they need to do in terms of implementation. They're getting their support directly from BlackBerry if they need it. Otherwise, they are deploying the solution themselves.

The costs have recently increased, since their acquisition of Cylance. They're attempting to integrate the technology into their product and charging quite a bit more for it as a consequence. Many clients are unhappy about this.

I'm a Blackberry reseller.

Many people don't realize that most of the cars on the road today use Blackberry software, from Tesla to GM.

I activate mobile services on every major carrier. Originally, I activated BlackBerry devices through BlackBerry's relationship with T-Mobile. Then when BlackBerry got out of the mobile business, as part of that process, I became certified on the BlackBerry enterprise server. Now BlackBerry is no longer really doing devices. You can still get BlackBerry devices, but they're not manufactured by BlackBerry. They're licensed by BlackBerry and they're Android devices. Therefore, basically am reselling BlackBerry UEM still.

BlackBerry is changing the solution a lot now. About a year ago, they purchased Cylance. They're integrating Cylance with BlackBerry UEM, and the customers, my customers who are BlackBerry customers, are having trouble understanding what the difference is. My goal is to understand that difference and explain it to them.

In terms of users considering using the solution, if they're running Intune, and are not worried about a VPN, probably the best approach is not to use this solution in a very small company. They probably don't need to worry about the features and shouldn't buy a BlackBerry enterprise server. On the other hand, if they're worried about security and want some of the end device security, then they should look at a BlackBerry Enterprise Server due to the fact that it integrates really well with Intune and manages VPN connections. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is the PIM, it's a personal information manager: mailbox, browsing, etc.

The most important aspect was for us is to have better security. It gives us the ability to have a container and the most secure possible application. It gives us the most secure situation.

The mailbox. The mailbox is the most important and is the feature we use most.

Currently, I don't have any suggestions because it does the job perfectly. It's really great to have a container application. For us, that is the most important part.

It's very stable. There were some very minor and specific issues, but no larger issues.

No issues with scalability at all. 

They provide quick replies, they're very kind and perfectly professional. I have no problem with tech support.

We have VMware AirWatch but not for this use case, so we can't compare. We needed it to have a container application. We have a very sensitive user population, in terms of security. Our clients need the most secure usage. That's why we switched to BlackBerry, the security is outstanding.

The previous product was Good Technology for Enterprise. The main concern was to continue with BlackBerry, the new products, and not change.

The management and implementation were done by me, I'm the solution architect. There was no problem with this. It was very simple.

Don't hesitate to contact the vendor for help, if needed. Also, be sure that your use case is met by the product; for example, the security. Perhaps you don't need to have security because your environment is not very sensitive. Check issues like that.

I give it a 10 out of 10. All our user adoption is done, and the experience has been very good, no problems.

The BlackBerry Suite is used for mail, collaboration, instant messaging, and secure browsing.

It has improved the ability of our mobility users, such as business partners, to collaborate with their clients a lot more freely and without having to carry multiple devices.

It also improved the way all the applications work together. The activation feature was a big improvement from the UEM. It was a big improvement to activate applications with one authentication. That was a big plus for the user experience.

The most important would be instant messaging and the security that we get from the containerization.

When I say security, I mean policies that we can put down, not allowing our data to be leaked. Since we're a BYO shop - bring your own device - we like to make sure that the company's data is secure and not being leaked.

It takes a lot of time to export the logs, zip them, and upload them. With Good Technology, there was actually a feature from the GUI, right from the console, I was able to send the logs. I was able send my server logs to Good and that was very convenient. What I'm noticing now, and it feels like I took a step back, is that I have to zip logs again and upload them. And that takes a lot of time.

I know for the BlackBerry Connect, our users want to see more features, such as audio and video. I know the current version doesn't have that. I think that's one of the major features in the collaboration when it comes to the messaging part, the Connect.

It is very stable. I haven't had any major outages. The only issue we have, and I don't think we have too much control over it, is when devices, OS's such as iOS, do an update that breaks the application. That's usually beyond our control.

The scalability is great for our organization. I haven't had any issue with performance.

Technical support is above average. The only thing I would like them to improve is, when I open up a case, I don't want to have to see the script requiring me to tell them what version I'm on, what patch, serial number, etc. I feel that as soon as I open a case, that information should already be uploaded. I shouldn't have to give my version I'm running every time I open a case.

In terms of taking care of us, it depends on what the escalation point is. If it's an emergency, usually I usually get a call right away. We have Premium Support so we do get good support. In terms of the amount of time, sometimes they tend to investigate or we have to inform them to escalate to an engineer for certain things. But, overall, it's above average.

Previously we were a Good Technology shop and Good was purchased by BlackBerry. Before this product, we evaluated VMware AirWatch and I think the better move was just going from Good to Blackberry because, at the time, it was still the better solution.

The setup wasn't complex. It was a lot better than the older versions, and that is because they integrated the Good Technology. The Good Technology, I have to say, was really good.

It's a good, secure product. It still needs a little more development to grow. I would say test it and see if it fits.

Overall, I give it a strong seven out of 10. The reason is that work is needed when it comes to other platforms, such as Windows and Mac. But as for mobile devices, I think they're spot on.

The primary reason that we use it for is notifications.

Prior to BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite (BEMS) or its predecessor, users could not be notified of their mobile messaging arriving on their device. They had to pull it, but this is a push function. Users rely on it. People want to know where to get devices when a message arrive. 

Whenever we have issues, people rely on the ability to check messages promptly.

The primary usage for BEMS is Apple pushing notifications for email. Without that, it does not work, but that is the primary feature for which we use it. There are secondary features, such as link, but it is not a critical feature. 

For BEMS, they could configure the secure documents to be easier to work with protective documents. However, this is not a critical app at this point that we use, so I am not chasing after it. 

From the past to the present, before mobility location, we frequently required a restart. The newer version is better in this regard. Things do not get disconnected as much as before when, for example, we do an Exchange update, then Exchange service was interrupted. When this happens, chances will be that we need to restart the enterprise core services on the BEM Server to reconnect a everyone. Now, this particular issue is happening far less than before.

The newer version is pretty stable.

For our company, scalability is not a problem. It is not even approaching anything that I would need to be worried about.

BlackBerry tech support overall is pretty good. We have premium support, so I do not have anything negative to mention.

Previously, we did not use anything else. In this company, it has always been BlackBerry and Good (which BlackBerry bought).

Every version upgrade has been straightforward.

We may have looked at other MDM solutions other than the BlackBerry line of products, but it is the product that is already in place.

It is a straightforward product, but it definitely needs support.

It is for our personal mobile devices.

Compared to the product that we upgraded from, we have received great responses from our end users who are appreciative of the following:

• They can access their calendar in events better than the other product that we were using.
• They can access their attachments.
• It is a faster connection. 
• The interface is much better than what we had previously. 
• It is overall great for setup. 
• It has good ease of use.
• It's intuitive.

• The security aspects of it. 
• Being able to access emails within the active sync.
• It is a secure container product.
• It having some browser capabilities and fast connectivity.

The console needs improvement. It does not provide all the information that we are looking for as far as who has installed a certain product. I understand this should be coming later, but it should be available now. There is a space for it now.

As far as being able to remotely wipe a device, or remove it from the console, this is not simple to do. It is not a one-click motion, as it requires several steps. So, clean-up on our side is not easy.

Trying to determine when enrollments have not been activated, or expired, is something that should be available within the console, but it is not there.

There are some gaps for our administrators to be able to do things a little bit easier.

As far as stability, for the majority of this migration, it has been pretty stable. I do not have any complaints about it.

For scalability, the information that we were provided initially, it has helped us be able to scale this out with what we are trying to do, which right now is just email and web. If we needed to scale out further for additional applications, we probably would have to make sure that we can handle the number of connections. At this point, we have been just trying to do an apples-to-apples migration, and we are scaled well.

We are used to calling in for Level 3 support. In some aspects, since it is a good product that was revamped for BlackBerry, it has had its hurdles. I am used to them knowing the product inside and out, but it does take a few cycles to be able to get up to speed as to what we need. 

A lot of issues that we are experiencing are being handled with upgrades. If it was just a simple how-to type of call, they are very good with that. If it requires additional troubleshooting and a deeper dive, with some of the issues that we have experienced, we have had to go find that person or two who knows the system very well. It would be beneficial to make sure that people are better trained for some of the tougher problems that come up with configuration.

We upgraded from Good, so we had no choice but to upgrade because it was at end of life.

The upgrade was simple, but it took a while to complete.

Over the years, we have evaluated other products to implement, but decided not to go with them.

The product that we were initially going to switch to, it had issues with being able to handle the upgrades that Apple was pushing. It caused some constraints with not being able to fully update their product and being able to update with the iOS updates. It caused a lot of confusion, so management was not satisfied with their level of response. 

Make sure you read the planning guides, so you can thoroughly plan your architecture accordingly.

The primary use is to get mobile access for things like email, that is the most important thing; when you're traveling or not at the campus. We use it for access to email, to the internet and to office stuff when not in the office.

People were used to accessing their email, etc., as we had BlackBerry Enterprise Service before. That's the biggest benefit, that you have your access to email, agenda, to your contacts when you're traveling around.

It was also an improvement when we got the Tasks and the Notes as well as Connect for Skype For Business. Those are the apps that brought improvement

The most important is BlackBerry Work, for sure because that is where you have email, and access to the emails is the most important thing for the users.

Access to the internet is also important, as well as calendar. The personal information management - email, calendar, contacts - are important, as well, perhaps as the Outlook features Tasks or Notes. Those are the most used.

What we don't have at the moment is RDP from the device to some kind of PC. That would perhaps become important. I don't know if that's coming from the BlackBerry Apps environment, or if that would be from a third-party.

Another feature would be access to a delegate's mailbox and I think that is to come in one of the next releases. There have been a lot of requests for that type of feature where, for example, a secretary can access the mailbox of the boss. 

It might also be good to have some SAP apps. That's not in the BlackBerry, but it's in the container. Because we all have our business apps in the BlackBerry container, I count them as also being business apps.

It's really very rare for us to have had got problems with stability of the environment. For, a minimum of one year it has been running without any problems. There was an issue, where we configured something, and we had a problem with stability. But other than changes to the configuration, we have not had any problems with the stability.

We haven't really had any scalability issues. The only thing is that the UEM service is a little slow. We have a product production environment, and a test environment and both of them are a little slow. When you are using the UEM Web interface, it takes time to load. I don't know if that is because of the number of users, but generally, scalability is not a problem. If we had a very large number of users to add, I think we would find a solution, so that should be no problem.

We are quite satisfied with the technical support. It's running quite well. It's quite easy, no problem to open up a ticket. Our technical account manager is also very good because he checks for a solution, or perhaps he can push a ticket a little. But overall, we have had a good experience with their support.

We were using the old BlackBerry solution, BlackBerry Enterprise server. Then we switched to the Good solution. And then Good Technology was bought by BlackBerry and we were using BlackBerry again.

The setup was a bit complex because of our requirements. We had to build very strict security. We wanted to do the whole thing with Kerberos, so that you don't have to fill in your Active Directory password on the device, and that was a bit complex. 

The normal setup is not too complex, but if you want to have an extra-secure process with Kerberos authentication then it's a bit complex. When you want to do it like we did, you need help. I don't think it's really possible to reach that level by yourself.

When I talk to our account manager, or with our sales guy, they both say we have one of the most secure environments, and one of the most perfectly built-up environments they've ever seen. So we reached a very good level there.

We looked at several solutions, comparing BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite vs AirWatch, and Absynth, which came up a few years ago. We had a closer look at Abysnth but it wasn't able to deliver the way we wanted it so they were out. We had a close look at Good Technology and then it was acquired quite fast.

I would definitely advise having somebody supporting you when setting it up because you can create a very secure setup. As we are in the defense industry, we wanted a secure setup and used consulting and support to create a good setup. If you create such a setup, a secure setup, you will have a really fine solution.

I rate it an eight out of 10, which is quite good. It is not perfect, but it's on the way to perfect. If there are a few more features and there is a little more advancement, I think it's a very good solution. We have a good solution, satisfied customers within our company. The stability is very good. It is running quite well.

• Mobile device management for 400 business owned iOS devices in Canada. 
• Container apps for secure mail, browsing, app management, and secure remote access.

BlackBerry UEM is an improvement over BlackBerry Good for Enterprise - barely. We have good policy control with mobile devices and have a streamlined provisioning process with Apple DEP and BlackBerry UEM.

When the product works, it allows us to secure these devices in a way we could not before, and have control over the iOS updates and applications that we lacked.

• Support is terrible for the most part. 
• The product releases are periodically unstable and cause further issues with the console and mobile devices. When the product is stable, it's OK.