Vodacom Business BYOD security solution - BBM Recruitment Competition

Vodacom Business launches BYOD security solution

Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, is on the rise.  Employees are increasingly using their own smartphones, tablets, and other devices for work. It’s great for employees to be able to use the device that they prefer and can help companies increase productivity and reduce costs, but it can be a major challenge when it comes to managing company network security. Vodacom Business has now stepped in with a new solution which gives IT security managers the tools needed to safely bring BYOD under control.

Vodacom Secure Device Manager is a new Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution developed by Vodacom Business. This solution provides administration functionality for businesses to remotely manage mobile devices and enforce security policies, giving employees secure access to corporate data. The tool can be used for both company-owned and employee-owned devices across the business.

Chris Ross, Managing Executive of Products and Services at Vodacom Business said:

“With around 95% of employees stating that they use at least one personal device for work, BYOD is a reality that company IT security managers simply can’t ignore.

“Although the ability to allow staff to work at any time, from anywhere and on any device provides real business benefits, it also brings significant risks. To ensure that information does not end up in the wrong hands, it’s imperative that companies put security measures in place.”

Vodacom Secure Device Manager is a solution that enables companies to manage all devices using company resources through an internet-based console. Once devices have been added, companies can maintain the security of their data and applications, even if a device is lost or stolen. This is done by ensuring that only authorized and compliant devices have access to the company network, and by locking down and wiping the data from any lost or stolen devices. 

Vodacom Secure Device Manager also enables companies to remotely monitor the health of smart devices and run diagnostics to identify issues and fix problems as efficiently as possible. On top of this, the service allows the viewing of application inventory and data against thresholds in order to simplify the management mobile assets and inventory. Updating or adding new policies, settings, certificates, applications, and software can also all now be managed wirelessly via the internet using Vodacom Business’ MDM solution.

“The web-based console gives companies the ability to control who can access company information and applications via their own smart devices, thereby protecting vital information and helping companies to comply with regulations such as the impending POPI Act,” adds Ross.

Vodacom Secure Device Manager works across key platforms including iOS, Android and Windows Mobile devices. It’s a highly scalable solution designed to support as many or as few devices as needed, making it suitable for use by small businesses as well as large organisations and government departments.

“Companies will also have access to a dedicated Vodacom Business support team to provide the kind of round-the-clock support that our customers have come to expect from us,” adds Ross.

The Great South African BBM Recruitment Contest

Something exciting from BlackBerry just for you:

1.      The competition will run between January 30, 2015 and April 30, 2015.

2.      BBM users in South Africa – on BlackBerry, Android, iOS and Windows Phone – are eligible to participate.  However, participants must already be BBM users by January 30, 2015 in order to qualify to win. 

3.      Participants must recruit new BBM users and add them to their BBM contact list.

4.      Each new recruit must be new to BBM, have a minimum of ten contacts by the end of the contest and send messages regularly.  The 1,000 people who recruit the most new BBM users will receive 1,000.00 ZAR each of airtime credit applied to their mobile prepaid account.

For more info on BBM and The Great South African BBM Recruitment Contest, please visit http://www.bbm.com or http://www.bbm.com/contest/za

This edition by Fred Felton

Twitter @fredfelton 

Apps for the Soccer World Cup & Free WiFi hits Durban's Florida Road

Apps for Soccer’s Biggest Event:

·         Team Stream (Bleacher Report) – Pick the teams you want to follow and access personalized streams for scores, stories, videos and pictures from all the best sports sources across the web. Regardless of where you are in the world, Team Stream will make it feel like you’re on the ground in Brazil getting the big news as it happens.

·         Goal (Goal.com) – The Goal.com mobile app brings you the latest news straight from a worldwide network of reporters. Don’t miss a single goal or a shred of news from the world of soccer with exclusive content from Goal.com. Awesome features include: real time access to all Goal.com breakings news; live match commentary; live Twitter feed; content sharing via email and BBM; and much more!

·         Hooligans (Najib Abdillah) – Hooligans is the ultimate soccer companion for the ultimate soccer fan. This is a must have app if you want to support your country’s team while they compete in Brazil. Take a selfie and the Hooligans app will be able to add the flags or icons of your favorite team directly onto your photo. Show your spirit and support your club by sharing your patriotic pics directly with your friends (and rivals) via BBM!

·         June Cup (s42) – June Cup will be the best friend of many busy soccer fans. Gain access to live play by play updates, instant results and stats, notifications of big news, instant social media sharing and much more. Available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and with a unique and beautiful design, June Cup is a great option for staying in the loop while your team battles it out on the field in Brazil!

·         TheFanKit (Sensebyte Mobile) – Are you a soccer Fan, Super Fan or Mega Fan? Choose your fan level on TheFanKit and tailor the app’s functionality accordingly to get only the features you will need. Do everything from personalizing your device with wallpapers and ringtones, to staying up-to-date on news from your favorite team. TheFanKit can serve as your guide to surviving soccer’s biggest event!

If you’re taking break from watching the games and want to play a little yourself, check out these fun soccer games:

1.       World Football: Real Flick Soccer 14 (Thunderbull)

2.       Tricky Shot Soccer (DreamAppsLab)

3.       Football Director 2014 (Marmalade Play)

4.       Training With Messi (Fundacion Leo Messi)

5.       Metegol (Compana de medios digitales SA)

Show Support for Your Favorite Team on BBM

BBM Sticker Packs: Support your favourite team with new BBM sticker packs with fun team illustrations supporting the teams from Brazil, France, United States, England, Colombia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, Honduras, Holland, Germany and Australia.

BBM Country Flag Shortcuts: As part of this sports celebration, don’t forget the BBM shortcuts for traditional flag icons. Users can add a flag icon of their favourite team when writing in the "Write a message" field or in the “profile name", as well as in "what are you thinking" fields. To do this, you only need to enter the country code in any of the fields listed and it will appear automatically.

The complete list of country codes can be found here (compilation by CrackBerry).

Custom PIN Card Creator: As the excitement of the big tournament is everywhere, now BBM users can share their PIN and support their team through the BBM PIN Card Creator. BBM PIN Card Creator is a tool that allows you to create BBM contact cards that are as original and creative as you want them to be. This season you’ll be able to personalize your BBM contact card with a country theme. Share your PIN card with friends through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter or via email and add them to BBM.

BBM is available for free for BlackBerry® users at BlackBerry World; for Android users it can be downloaded from Google Play and iOS users can download it from Apple App Store.

Free WiFi comes to Florida Road in Durban

For more information about MWEB WiFi visit www.mweb.co.za/MwebWiFi/AboutMwebWiFi.aspx

All About The Red Light And Blackberry

INSIGHTS OF A BLACKBERRY

People’s heads are always down and not because they have depression but because they have a Blackberry in their hands and their eyes are glued to it. One of the dominant names in the global smartphone market that hit the app world by storm considered to be the most purchased smartphone globally and still has the largest market share over its leading competitor iPhone. Knowing very well that majority of students own Blackberry smartphones, this is what University of Johannesburg students had to say.

‘Blackberry messenger is my favourite because it is a convenient way for me to always stay up to date with what my friends are getting up to via their status updates, they can be really juicy too. Gone are the days when we would send each other text messages and not even be sure whether or not your friend has received it. BBM shows you the minute your message has been received and read, so my friends cannot lie and make excuses saying that they didn’t receive it.’   

A lot of students said they find picmix very interesting because it is an exciting and a great app for editing pictures, the filters it has gives pictures the perfect lighting, it blurs out any imperfections and it can crop out whoever you don’t want in the picture. With picmix you can also share the picture directly to Facebook. Students emphasized the fact that picmix is the new age revolution to collaging because now they can juxtapose different pictures of different moments or people close to them in different frames and in one picture. Meaning users can share their #BBMoments with the world and for a chance to have their stories featured on Inside Blackberry.

What do you use your Blackberry mostly for… A lot of people use it for social media because Blackberry comes with a lot of social media integrated apps. When you click on the social media icon on your home screen, it is a direct link to the site meaning you do not have to go to your web browser and you receive the messages directly to your phone. Other people will use it mostly for receiving emails on their phones and it is very convenient because now you do not have to wait till you get to your laptop in order to check your emails. BBM plays a major role in how we communicate with each other, and this is a great way to share the various ways iPhone, Android and Blackberry users leveraging BBM to communicate with their loved ones.

What do you do when your BIS expires? ‘I panic because I’m so used to receiving notifications and the red light flickering for me to attend to my texts. And I feel like my life is over and I have to rush to buy my Blackberry Internet Service as soon as possible.’ 

Article by +Molly Dimpho 

Look out for Find Friends on your BBM

Starting today*, BBM is being updated with the Find Friends on BBM feature for iPhone and Android, allowing users to easily find their friends and contacts already using BBM. The Find Friends feature is something that BBM users have been asking for and we’re now bringing it to them in this latest update to BBM for iPhone and Android.

The Find Friends feature will detect which contacts in your smartphone’s contact list are already using BBM, and allow you to quickly choose who to send a PIN invite to. For those contacts that don’t yet have BBM, you can invite them to download the app with an email or SMS invite.

The Find Friends feature will detect which contacts in your smartphone’s contact list are already using BBM, and allow you to quickly choose who to send a PIN invite to. For those contacts that don’t yet have BBM, you can invite them to download the app with an email or SMS invite.

*BBM update rolling out from today and tomorrow.  

(Source - BlackBerry) 

BBM Meets LG Smartphones

BBM MEETS LG SMARTPHONES

The G Pro Lite Will Be the First LG smartphone to Offer BBM out-of-the-box

Lauren Immelman

Smartphones these days have everything, and now, all soon to be new, Black Berry Messenger™ (BBM) will be included preinstalled on the LG G Pro Lite from LG Electronics Inc. all over the world. BlackBerry® has announced a bundling agreement with LG Electronics involving both standard and virtual preloading (using the LG App Manager) and have confirmed that BBM will also continue to be available as a free download from Android app stores, including Google Play™.

“BBM is widely used throughout the Middle East, Africa and Indonesia where smartphone users tend to engage heavily in social networking,” said Kevin Shin, Vice President of Marketing for Asia, the Middle East and CIS countries of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. Shin also states that the LG G Pro Lite offers an optimized BBM experience with its large, high quality display and embedded easy to use Stylus Pen.

“People across the globe are using BBM to connect with each other and the enthusiasm has been phenomenal,” said Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President for BBM at BlackBerry. “We’re extremely pleased that LG Electronics will help bring their customers a more seamless experience with BBM by preloading the app, starting with the G Pro Lite in key markets.”

In the next few months , Android and iPhone®  users will be able to have the BBM experience which is a premier mobile communication service that not only gives customers privacy, but also control and immediacy as they chat with their friends on their contact list. Users can either chat one-to-one, in multiple chats or as part of a BBM Group and now, as a new feature in the recent upgrade can become a part of a channel that allows uses to communicate with others who have similar interests in an engaging and familiar manner. BBM’s ‘Delivered’ and ‘Read’ statuses, as well as message-in-progress notices, allow people to stay connected and active in all of their conversations. 

BBM lets users share files such as photos and voice notes, as well as updating their profile pictures and statuses with ease. Up to 30 people can connect as a BBM Group to chat and share photos, files and documents and even calendars.

Anybody who uses BBM has a unique Pin connected to their Blackberry ID to secure their privacy. Users never have to give out their phone number or email address to begin chatting with a new or casual contact, it is as simple as only giving your pin to people only you want to talk to.

When BBM was introduced in 2005, it became one of the biggest private social networking mobile sites known today.  The BBM experience, which is known and enjoyed by customers for its immediacy, control and privacy, will evolve for Android and iPhones which includes new updates such as the new BBM channels, BBM Voice calling and BBM Video calling.

To help beginners with knowing all about using BBM for Android and IPhones you can use the Getting Started Guide as well as the How-To Videos to learn how to use BBM on your no- longer- Black Berry phone.  Or for more information about using Black Berry apps, visit www.blackberry.com.

(Source - Blackberry) 

Over 10 Million Downloads of BBM for Android and iPhone in First Day

BBM achieved top ranking in the App Store in over 75 countries within the first 24 hours.

·         A reminder that for Samsung customers in Sub-Saharan Africa, BBM is available to download from the Samsung Apps store. iPhone and other Android users in Africa will be able to download the app from 20h00 on 24 October 2013. 

·         Additional Resources and Information: To help new, and previous, BBM users, we have posted some how-to videos on the BlackBerry YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/blackberry) to help people get familiar with, or re-familiarize themselves with, BBM.

(Source - Blackberry)