BlackBerry has announced plans to launch a brand new tool for government and business customers that it feels will help make up for the recent decline in BlackBerry sales.
The company said this week it will launch BlackBerry Enterprise Service 12, or BES12 for short, to "unify its existing platforms and provide clients with increased flexibility and security," according to Reuters.
BlackBerry, under new Chief Executive John Chen, is attempting to reinvent itself after dealing with a drastic decline in popularity due to the rise of Apple's iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices.
Its new line of BlackBerry 10 devices have failed to win back customers, though the company is hoping to increase sales by focusing on its enterprise business.
"With both BES5 and BES10 we have mobile device management platforms, but the breadth of functionality we provided on those was relatively narrow," said John Sims, the head of BlackBerry's enterprise business, according to Reuters.
BES12 will debut by the end of 2014, and will join the existing BES10 and BES5 platforms that are currently used to manage devices.
BES5 runs BlackBerry's older generation of devices, and its BES10 helps clients manage its new devices powered by BlackBerry 10 operating system, along with Apple's iOS operating system and Google's Android OS.
"We wanted to expand the platform and BES12 is positioned as the next step on that axis. We will be able to provide seamless enterprise mobility management to the whole family of BlackBerry devices, as well as much stronger capabilities in the cross platform space," said Sims, noting that BES12 will allow those using iOS and Android devices on corporate networks to enjoy a much more seamless user experience.
This past December, BlackBerry confirmed the number of enterprise clients that were testing or had installed its BES10 had increased from 25,000 to 30,000.
BlackBerry also revealed plans to launch its BBM Protected service which will allow enterprise clients in regulated industries to use its messaging application BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for corporate messaging.
"The service will allow employees of an organization to chat with their colleagues under a level of enhanced security, while remaining free to message their BBM contacts outside of the organization easily and in privacy," according to Reuters.
BBM Protected will launch this summer.
BBM is still considered a pioneering mobile-messaging service, but its user base hasn't been able to keep up with similar services like WhatsApp, which was recently acquired by Facebook.
BlackBerry also announced this week that it was going to make its BBM service available to Microsoft's Windows Phone and its upcoming Nokia X platforms within the next year.
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