BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite Reviews

We use it for mobile device management and email and calendar on the mobile devices. It has performed very well. You get the odd device where you need to reinstall it because something is broken.

The main benefit is having email wherever you are and having access to your calendar wherever you are.

• Keeps things secure.
• It can remotely wipe the container.
• Fairly easy to use.

I'd like there to be more in the core product rather than having to buy additional products. For example, being able to trace your devices after an emergency is an additional product you have to buy to do that properly.

We've had issues with devices not responding and needing to be reinstalled, but from the server side things seem to work, it seems to be fairly stable.

We're only a small organization so it has managed our number of devices quite well. I'm a bit concerned at how often and how complex it is to upgrade.

Occasionally we've had issues that we've had to refer to technical support and sometimes it has taken a little while to get the right answer from them.

We had Good for Enterprise and then BlackBerry bought them that's how we ended up with BlackBerry.

For me, the most important criteria when selecting a vendor are capability, ease of use, and price.

We had to have a third-party to do the setup.

At times we've looked at everything that was in the market and Good and Blackberry were the only ones that had the capabilities that we needed.

Have a look around. There are a lot of products out there now that have similar capabilities. BlackBerry may be a market leader but there is a whole lot of stuff it does that you may not require.

I would rate BlackBerry at seven out of 10 because it's too difficult to manage ourselves. We have to get a third-party in to do that. The fact that it breaks on some end-users' devices is also a concern and just the frequency and complexity of upgrades.

We used BES UEM mainly for our regulated users to lock down devices. It provided us with extra security that we couldn’t achieve with other EMM solution.

It didn’t help us because we ran into lot of issues, and BlackBerry support couldn’t figure out the issues in a timely fashion.

I value the way BES UEM was able to utilize Android for Work-Premium in BlackBerry Android devices.

Second level support needs to have strong knowledge of the product. My issues were always at the developer level.

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 solution is secure, because it is a container. However, the way I use it is to access my emails, my calendar, and the web browser to look for work-related projects.

It allows me to be able to access my email when I do not necessarily have my computer with me. I can also access my calendar when I am on public transport or outside of the office.

Email, because it is the most important thing that I have to check.

The ability to integrate the calendar of BlackBerry applications, so I can put my personal information on the BlackBerry Calendar.

Some users have complained that some features cannot be done through the BlackBerry Access Hub. So, we are still working with BlackBerry on how to make this work. Other than that, everything is working correctly.

We have no scalability issues. We do have a project of greater infrastructure, but it should take time. We have discussed it with the BlackBerry engineers, so it should be fine.

Technical support is good. 

For each new case, they ask the same question, "What could be improved?" They could keep records of what the client has installed in their company, so if they have to ask you a question once, then they could write it down. Then, they do not need to ask, "Can you send this, this, and this before we start looking into your problem?"

We did not have another solution before BlackBerry.

It took some time to put it into our infrastructure because we have a specific infrastructure. Then, we took the time to analyze what would be the best way to implement it in our company before we managed to find a solution.

I am not involved in the pricing and licensing.

We did an RFP, then we chose among the multiple vendors. BlackBerry turned out to be the best.

The product is good on its own.

Take the time to focus on how the product will be integrated into the existing infrastructure to make it work the best way possible, which will result in the best user experience possible.

Primary use is bring your own device scenario, not managing an iOS device, and keeping e-mails safely on our own private device.

We are using BlackBerry Work applications for accessing emails, calendars, and contacts. The users are happy to have an easy way to have access to emails on the go. The most important thing for us is to have quick communication by email and phone calls on mobile, because with many users, we are on the go every day, which is very good.

It is easy to use for end users. 

The security of the app is a valuable feature for us. It is mainly about storage data on the device and certifications. In addition, with longstanding BlackBerry customers, they appreciate it if you launched BlackBerry Work applications from a good technology company. Therefore, we introduced this product to our end users because it has the longstanding security name of BlackBerry on it, and we could use it safely on our side.

It is flexible to use. We can enroll multiple devices to use iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, with all that they entail. There is very high flexibility for different setups of single users, so it can give a single use many different device types with different enrollment types.

The newest features sometimes pop in very slowly.

It is a very stable product. We have around 400 users on it. They just use the BlackBerry Work application for about 5000 devices overall. The BlackBerry 10 device and Android are very stable and perform well in our everyday business.

We do not have any scalability issues at this time. We have enough service for quick communication on the devices. Therefore, we are very happy with it.

Sometimes tech support is excellent and very quick in replying and finding overages in detail. Other times, it is a very hard discussion when you are searching for something specific, and the system is turning over and over again. Overall, they are satisfying to work with though. 

I started with S4 years ago. I moved over to the latest solution over and over again, so S4, S5, S10, and S12. Now, we are using the latest version BlackBerry UEM, and we are not using another mobility solution in our company.

The initial setup was easy to do. The configuration and installation guide are very helpful in setting up a domain, and it is very easy to set up a new domain. As we are a longstanding BlackBerry customer, we are very familiar with everythign in the router.

The product pricing is fine. 

Sometimes, it is very hard to get an overview because there are so many different suites to find out what is the right thing for new customers. It is very hard to find because there are so many different licensing suite names. There is a whole suite, with four to six suite names, and they are all gold licenses and SIM-based licensing. There are very many options for us to choose from, which is good on one side, but on the other side, it is very hard to figure out what the best option is. 

We sometimes look into comparing whether it is still the best option to be a BlackBerry customer or moving forward to Citrix, or something similar. At the moment, we are very happy with Blackberry UEM, so we are not looking to move away from BlackBerry.

It has the easiest setup. You don't have to configure some picture changes in your firewall, and punching out holes in there. It has an easy infrastructure, which is very easy to explain, and very quick to obtain an overview.

We are able to get our hands on pre-release software and share our feedback safely with the product management. Also, this is the same in the case of feature enhancements. 

It's corporate. We own devices, and there are BYOD devices nowadays. We're in quite a high-security environment in the finance world, so we have to make sure that we are able to contain our data. UEM and BEMS allow us to be able to remove data from devices, when needed, and protect it.

The functionality with UEM and BlackBerry Works, the shared calendar, is a massive improvement for us. We've always been asked for that from the early days. The extra security that goes with it is also helpful. We have had some issues, and we are asking for some improvements. But I think the move from Good for Enterprise to BlackBerry Work is positive for us. We're getting very positive feedback on the user experience.

Email, obviously; to enable our users to keep in touch with the office. But also we're moving towards a BYOD kind of environment, so it's good that we can offer our users access to their mail but still not infringe on their devices.

One issue that is very annoying at that moment, that we're having an argument about with BlackBerry, is the inability to remove the signature automatically from the server. So when I open BlackBerry Work and send an email, the default is to have www.blackberry.com there, which is not great for us. We're having to tell our users that they have to remove that and set their own signature, which is fine generally, but some of our execs don't like doing things like that.

We're also having some issues with classifications at the moment, for emails.

We've had no issues with stability. We've pretty much got our disaster recovery plan set up, so we're fairly good on that point.

In terms of scalability, everything is fine. We over-engineer and we work very closely with one of their engineering resources who is coming up with the design. We're not having any scalability issues at all.

Brilliant. We have always had really good support from the guys. They've always been good and sometimes we're very demanding. They have been brilliant.

We've had BlackBerry, BES 3.6 was where we started. That went through to where we are now, UEM. We then introduced, from a BYOD point of view, Good Technology, so GFE 7, GFE 8, and we also used MobileIron for some of our corporate devices to protect them. The move to UEM was because we need to make sure that the security is there, so we're moving back towards that now.

We've had BlackBerry around for so long that we're all fairly used to the requirements of it.

Historically, we had it in the bank and we were aware of its capabilities. We did, at one stage, go out and have a look at what else was there, but decided that they weren't actually what we wanted or fit for our purpose. We do constantly look.

I've always backed BlackBerry, in fairness. I've always liked it from a very early stage. My advice would depend on where you are. We're in a very restricted, audited environment, and it does everything we need it to do. If you want to protect your stuff, then it's probably a good way to go.

I think it's a very solid product and people generally like it. We're at very early stages of moving from GFE (Good Technology for Enterprise) to BlackBerry Work, so we're seeing tasks and notes which the general population of the bank hasn't had before. But unfortunately, we're only in a technical pilot at the moment. We go to pre-live user pilot next week, so I could probably give you more feedback then, but everything seems to be fairly good at the moment and people are enjoying it.

It has always worked for us, although I'm slightly biased because I manage it and put it in. But unless there is an outside issue somewhere, like the phone network or the like, it's reliable. I can be out and about and get my emails. They come in quicker than they do to Outlook, so it does everything I need it to do when I'm out on my mobile device.

Email contacts and calendaring on mobile devices.

It allows our mobile users to access email, contacts, calendaring, documents, and collaborate with users, all on their own mobile devices. They no longer need to always have their laptops with them to respond to an email, to edit a document, or to share information with fellow employees, or vendors.

The containerization of BlackBerry Dynamics is the most important thing for us. It allows us to keep personal and corporate data separate on a personal device. It allows us to wipe the corporate data while leaving all the personal data in place.

I would like to see better integration with our AD. Instead of having to use Active Directory groups, we'd like to use Active Directory attributes instead. There is a lot of overhead in managing. Whereas, if we could key on something tied to HR, or some other feed indicating who they are or what role they have, and manage them that way, that would be much preferable than having to manage people with Active Directory groups. Because, if people move roles, then we have to make sure that we move them from one Active Directory group to another, which is hands-on, a lot of overhead.

Also, they could improve their QA. There are many times where something will be released, a new client will be released, and something gets broken. Or they do a release and they don't take into consideration how some people may be using parts of it. Even though it's supported, they release something and it breaks it because they weren't aware of it. The biggest thing for me right now is, I would like to see improvement in their QA. I'm tired of getting broken software.

I would also like to see continued integration with the Microsoft suite of tools, Microsoft Word, Excel, etc., on a mobile device. Continue to improve that experience. Continue to move down that track, and partner with Microsoft, and other vendors, so we can make it a fully functioning suite; that we don't have to manage things on separate consoles. They should continue their strategic partnerships with others in this space, continue to move forward and allow us to have the integration that our customers want.

We haven't really had problems with stability in the recent past. We were on legacy Good for a long time and it had eventually become stable. We had some problems early on. We had problems with different products being stable. But lately, except for the QA that I mentioned before - the quality analysis they do, especially on the new products, especially on their clients - it's been relatively stable.

Tech support is much better now, but only because I'm integrating with Angie Simpson, our account rep. But if I don't get her involved early, I often end up on the phone with people who appear to know less than I do. They spend time going over a lot of stuff that I've already gone over, or they don't understand the product as well they could. It's not as bad as it used to be, but it occasionally happens if I open a ticket out of the blue without Angie knowing about it. If I let Angie know I'm opening a ticket, she usually makes sure it gets in the right hands very early. But I really would prefer that I not have to go through that route. Sometimes I have to make a call in the middle of the day, or we have to open a ticket in the middle of the day. Sometimes it's a shot in the dark whether you're going to get an analyst or someone who is familiar enough with the product.

We've used two vendors. We've used BlackBerry, then we moved to Good Technology, then BlackBerry bought Good.

When we originally switched from our old solution to Good, it was the ability to manage Android and iOS devices, and manage based on personal versus corporate data. That allowed us to keep all the corporate data in a container, separate from the personal data, and we could just wipe the corporate data if needed. It was really around the BYOD phenomenon that happened back in 2012, 2015, when iOS devices and Android started coming online and enterprise people wanted to bring their own devices. They didn't want to use BlackBerrys.

There are a lot of requirements with their applications, and there are a lot of different firewall rules that have to be in place. For our environment, that makes it difficult and a struggle sometimes to get upgraded, or when there's new functionality or new firewalls, because of all of our different firewall requirements, and the way we segregate our systems.

There's a lot to learn. Their product has a quite a bit, and learning it and realizing its potential takes a lot of work and a lot of study.

In my opinion, we're paying an awful lot for what we get, compared to other vendors. I don't deal with the pricing, but it does seem to be a bit pricey for the things that we get, especially, when you compare them to other vendors, such as VMware, Citrix, who have all bought up other players in this space. VMware offers AirWatch free as part of their packages. It's difficult to compare them to those because BlackBerry just does this, but it does seem to be a bit pricey in the space, compared to some of the other vendors.

We did have other options. Good Technology was the first really real player in the BYOD space that met our needs. BlackBerry wasn't there yet. The other vendors were just starting out in that space, and Good had been doing it for a while. When we started looking at it, they were the most mature in this space, and they were the ones that best met our needs.

We have looked at VMware's AirWatch, we've looked at MobileIron, we've looked at Intune, Citrix Solutions, Zendesk. We look at most of the top players which are recommended by industry reviews.

My advice depends on what industry you're in. If you are in a highly regulated industry such as ours, you need to take into consideration the ease of use of the product. We are in the highly regulated insurance industry, and from a security standpoint, BlackBerry best meets our needs.

If a solution is not easy to use, people will just find something else to use. If you make it too difficult for them to use the product, make it difficult for them to edit documents, view emails, or share content, they'll find ways, outside of the container and the space to do the same thing - such as personal email, personal shares - as opposed to using the corporate mobility suite.

I give Blackberry UEM a seven out of 10. From my customers' standpoint, it's reasonably easy to get set up. It's just there, and it just works. There is a lot more functionality we would like to release to our customers but, due to infrastructure restraints on our part, plus all the requirements that are always in place to install or stand up new infrastructure, or integrate with any new releases, it takes us some time to do that. We're working on that, and some of that is our issue. But, the on-premise solution, which we're using now, makes it difficult to easily get up and going, and get into our customers' hands, and get them trained on it.

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.