BlackBerry for Windows: Secure E-mail Coming to WM6

While less-than-technical observers have opined in recent months about the sudden ubiquitousness of the BlackBerry device, the truth is, only recently has it begun tapping into the power of the integrated handset. It has indeed proven the power of secure, portable e-mail (as well as how quickly it's missed when it goes down for a few hours), but manufacturer Research in Motion has decided it's time to penetrate the cell phone form factor.

RIM's forthcoming BlackBerry services for Windows Mobile 6 devices, announced this morning, appears designed to shore up defenses against an all-out assault from competitor Good Technology. When WM6 was announced a few months ago, Microsoft directly compared the appearance of its Mobile Outlook to that of BlackBerry's native applications, in order to attract customers who are expecting a more PC-like experience on their palmtops.

For BlackBerry to maintain its mindset share, it can't afford to engineer itself into a niche. Though the Pearl is a nice device, RIM will need to maintain significant brand presence beyond its BlackBerry Connect service and licensing its BlackBerry OS, even if that means BlackBerry users end up not really using BlackBerrys.

Still, it's a gamble for RIM, since it will be competing on the Windows Mobile platform not just on the strength of its brand and service but of its applications, and Microsoft will be the competitor. How will one of Canada's greatest consumer electronics success stories in recent years stand up in the software arena against the world's dominant software player?

"RIM's introduction of its BlackBerry application suite for Windows Mobile-based devices is a strong sign that the company will not willingly cede its dominance in the push-based e-mail space," Canada's own Carmi Levy of Info-Tech Research told BetaNews this afternoon, in an e-mail communiqué.

"Just as Microsoft has always followed a licensing-based model to ensure the widest possible market for its operating systems, RIM is now aggressively extending BlackBerry functionality beyond the handheld devices that it produces," Levy continued. "Playing nice with the competition is a critical step as the market environment surrounding its dominant wireless platform tightens."

BlackBerry's next generation licensed service -- which does not yet have a name, though RIM seems to be testing "virtual BlackBerry" -- will extend the company's push messaging technology to WM6 devices at the same time it promises compatibility with Exchange, Domino, and GroupWise. It also promises to provide a platform for third-party BlackBerry applications, in so doing, significantly extending the reach of developers' efforts, and perhaps enhancing the appeal of BlackBerry OS support in the process.

The problem will be attracting subscribers. For customers to whom WM6 appeals, the value proposition is centered around the extension of the PC work environment into the handheld space. Unless BlackBerry has some PC-oriented plans we don't know about (which at this point doesn't seem likely), it will have to combat that value proposition with the strength of its service. That might make a WM6 device, to some customers, look like all the functionality of Windows minus all the functionality of Windows - which doesn't make much sense unless there's a "plus" somewhere at the end of that equation.

So RIM's goal will be to grow its total subscriber base, as Levy explained: "If RIM doesn't expand beyond its own hardware, it risks imposing an artificial limit on the rate at which its platform can grow. By lifting that constraint, it stands a greater chance of attaining the lofty subscriber growth targets that it has set for the next number of quarters."

Up to now, Levy told us, "subscriber growth has been largely based on the rapid ramp in the number of RIM-branded BlackBerry devices being sold. This announcement will allow the company to leverage the advantages of BlackBerry push-based messaging across a wider range of hardware vendors and devices. The company already supports such functionality on Symbian and Palm, so it's a logical move to add Windows Mobile -- the emerging major mobile OS competitor -- to ensure it can benefit in some way from Microsoft's market growth.

"In some ways, it is a shot across Microsoft's bow," he continued, "but it is also how the game is played in this day and age."

Platform developers like to talk about an "ecosystem," but that paradigm works best when a platform and its support base can support themselves. Not even Planet Earth itself is that self-supporting, as inhabitants feeling the proverbial heat are just now coming to realize: For any information technology platform to survive for long, it turns out, it must balance itself on the precipices of other platforms, borrowing their energy and leveraging their resources to build on their own strengths. It's less of an ecosystem, and more of a marketplace.

"Open systems and standards encourage the accelerated development of larger user bases, which in turn attracts more developers to the platform," Carmi Levy reminded us. "The larger number of resulting application solutions then serve as an even greater incentive for new users to migrate to the platform."

For now, RIM has chosen to introduce this service to prospective customers with words only, unlike a typical Apple gadget or OS launch. The absence, at this early date, of any projected screenshots could simply be an element RIM's most comfortable strategy of choice, or it could be an indication that the appearance of BlackBerry services across the board is due for a change.

Today's announcement from RIM refers to "the familiar user interface of a BlackBerry smartphone," which may be Spartan in appearance though functional; yet it also refers to the development of "a consistent user interface and messaging experience."

If RIM chooses to endow its WM6-based applications with its typical, slightly-more-than-plain look, it may have a problem standing up against Mobile Outlook; on the other hand, if RIM's software developers go too far in enhancing their look and feel, the result may not be familiar enough to existing BlackBerry customers. It will be interesting to see how RIM chooses to resolve this dilemma.