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India Inc. Unfazed by BlackBerry Issue

Indian enterprises seem to have made alternate plans in case BlackBerry is unable to meet the deadline set by the Indian government. And even if it continues operations following an agreement with the government, organizations plan to de-risk their mobile communications strategy by reducing their dependency on the BlackBerry services.

Enterprises were already considering less costly alternatives to the BlackBerry and the current imbroglio only gives them more reason to do so. The BlackBerry licenses, BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, cost of handset and fees paid to service providers make it an expensive proposition. Device level encryption is one of the contributors for the popularity of the BlackBerry service. But with cheaper and more appealing-to-youth handsets, BlackBerry seems to be losing ground. All the same, push mail as a means of instant email is being taken seriously – with or without BlackBerry. “We have already created a backbone on push mail which is being promoted now,” says Hitesh Arora, Executive Vice President, Head - Information Technology, Max New York Life Insurance.

Push mail on Windows Mobile and Symbian based mobiles has emerged as a fairly secure and cost effective alternative to BlackBerry. The fact that it can be configured onto a wide range of devices also gives impetus to push mail’s popularity with the next-generation worker. “The younger set of employees that are joining the ranks want touch-based devices and there is this push on the IT in organizations to incorporate these new generation devices,” says Sumit Gupta, CIO, Fidelity.

This also becomes especially pertinent at organizations where users buy their own devices. “We only pay for the connection and the data services. We didn’t want to force users to buy the BlackBerry devices. So we have already piloted non-BlackBerry based push mail options as a proactive step to allow employees to use their own smartphones,” says C.V.G. Prasad, CIO, ING Vysya Bank. Such a strategy also helps them extend mobile email usage through low cost devices.

Some enterprises are looking at a dual strategy which will utilize a combination of BlackBerry and push mail on other handhelds. “Only senior executives would be on BlackBerry, in case the services are not impacted by the potential embargo, and the balance would move to other mobile based push mail,” says Arora. “Once the government and RIM decide on the level of sharing and reach an agreement we will decide as to how many people we will transfer,” he adds.

Arun Gupta, Group CIO, K Raheja Corp & Shoppers Stop has formally reviewed the process with his service providers and created a plan for transition to push mail. It’s only the time for execution that will be determined based on the final outcome of the imbroglio.  “As of date, 70 percent of mobile clients created are not on BlackBerry service. Used in conjunction with MS Exchange, we have not observed any limitations across a range of handsets,” he says. “And in case of stoppage or significantly reduced levels of service quality and security, we will move to the push mail on other handsets and phase out BlackBerry,” he adds.

Interestingly, most CIOs are not bothered by the privacy concerns related to mail interception by the government.