Research In Motion and the Saudi Arabian government are
engaged in “last-ditch” talks to avoid a planned Aug. 6 shutdown of BlackBerry
text messaging in the country, according to reports.
“[The ban] is only for the Messenger. Negotiations are still
going on, the deadline is final,” Sultan al-Malik, a member of Saudi Arabia’s
CITC (Communications and Information Technology Commission), told Reuters Aug. 4.
The news comes on the heels of RIM’s India controversy, with
officials there threatening to shut down the company’s operations unless it
addresses concerns about BlackBerry encryption. India’s Department of Telecommunications
feels that terrorists and other miscreants could use BlackBerry security to
send unbreakable messages, and wants RIM to take steps that ensure fuller
government access to users’ communications.
RIM has so far pushed back against government monitoring of
its services, arguing that its use of strong security is essential for
its
corporate clients. However, this is not the first round of complaints
about BlackBerry’s commercial-grade encryption; for years, governments
and law
enforcement have complained about criminals relying on BlackBerry,
which
utilizes private encryption keys assigned specifically to individual
users.
In October 2008, for example, the Royal Canadian Police
reported an increase in bad guys’ BlackBerry usage. “The BlackBerry [server]
was created with corporate data security in mind,” stated an agency report at
the time, according
to The Vancouver Sun. “Until recently, this system was affordable by
companies such as Telus, CIBC and the like; they are now more affordable and
it is easy for individuals to set up a network.”
The controversy with India and Saudi Arabia, however, hasn’t
impeded RIM’s strategy in the United States. On Aug. 3, RIM
executives launched the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 during a high-profile
presentation in New York. The company’s first sliding keyboard smartphone with
a capacitive touch screen, the Torch is designed to combat increasingly fierce
competitors in the mobile space, particularly the Apple iPhone and Google
Android.
“In order to create a bulwark against incursions in their
market from Apple and Google, RIM needs to expand its footprint,” Charles King,
an analyst with Pund-IT Research, told eWEEK in an Aug. 3 interview. “RIM
became the device of choice in the business market because they represented the
cutting edge of that market five, six, seven years ago.”
But with evolving technology, King added, “Business
smartphone users of every sort are thinking of their devices as multimedia
devices, enabled to do everything from e-mail to video conferencing to MP3
files. So it makes perfect sense for RIM to try and update with its own
products.” In addition, the increased multimedia capability allows RIM to make
a stronger play for the consumer market, currently the target of its rivals.
During the company’s Aug. 3 presentation, RIM executives
made no mention of the BlackBerry’s vaunted security.
Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
