RIM to Offer BlackBerry Protect to Smart Phone Users Soon

According to the latest reports, the BlackBerry Protect service is not undergoing a closed beta testing procedure. At this point we are expecting that the system might be moved up to open beta testing in less than a couple of months and after that period, the official launch –it is estimated that the service will be made open to BlackBerry users near the end of the year.

For those who have not heard, the BlackBerry Protect is a new service that has been designed by RIM for users who have the tendency to lose their smart phone. Of course, for anyone who cares about privacy and keeping data safe, this is one service that that is hard to pass up (even if you do not have the tendency to misplace or lose the device).

Protect gives users a special website that they can access in order to find their missing BlackBerry smartphones, and in cases where being able to retrieve the device is an impossibility, there are provisions for being able to lock down or even delete the phone’s contents remotely.

The reason for this service is that RIM wants to help their clients to protect in-phone data. Since most BB users are corporate clients, they often carry devices that contain sensitive information. Should these smart phones ever be used by others, then the data that is contained will be compromised. As such, being able to retrieve of delete content from a BlackBerry is a very big deal. Aside from completely wiping out the data from a BlackBerry handset, there is also the option to lock the phone –which will prevent anyone using the device to extract data from the handset.

There are also a couple of side functions that are a little less extreme such as locating the handset through GPS and by making it ring loudly, but this only applies to cases where the smart phone has been misplaced nearby and not during theft.

Tags: BlackBerry, Blackberry-Protect, GPS, RIM