Blackberry anounces Protect for remote backup

While speculation is rife on BlackBerry OS 6.0 and the hypothetical future of a RIM tablet, the Canadian manufacturer has announced Protect: a complete solution for remote backup of your phone.

While both BlackBerry servers, BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server, for large fleets of handsets) and BESE (Blackberry Enterprise Server Express, for SMEs and so on) give significant backup for enterprise handsets, Protect is aimed at users of BIS (Blackberry Internet Server), namely individuals.

RIM: almost MobileMe/MyPhone

Although the RIM application isn't yet part of the very hot cloud computing trend, it still exploits the capacities of the internet to a maximum. Its basic concept is managing one or several handsets and their accessibility and content remotely.

You have all the usual security features:

- Remote wipe of the data stored on the device and the microSD card;
- "Lost and Found" feature displays a message on the start screen;
- Remote lock;
- Geolocalisation of the device with the aid of the GPS (in silent mode);

as well as ease of use features:

- Reomote control of applications;
- Loud ring (max vol) on request;
- Remote back-up of the data stored on the device and the microSD card (manually or programmed, auto);
- Restore data on a new phone.

What's more: it's free

Although the different usages of Protect are not out of the ordinary, RIM is hitting hard by offering this solution completely free, in contrast to products from Microsoft and Apple. For the moment you'll have to do without complete server backup, settling for back up on your PC instead, but still, it's gesture we can only congratulate RIM on.

The application is currently in beta version and only available in English but RIM has promised availability in several languages before release of the final version.


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