Ever since I got my first BlackBerry almost a year ago I have been in love with almost all aspects of the device. One area that I am not all that found of, however, is the headset only Bluetooth. I guess that I should say headset, keyboard, and soon to be released smart card only Bluetooth. Research in Motion has disabled Bluetooth data functionality for security it reasons so many of the cool Bluetooth gadgets and applications such as business card readers and unit to unit file and contact transfer are not available to users of arguably the most popular PDA on the market.
I understand the security reasons behind Research in Motions decision to limit Bluetooth functionality. Many of their corporate and government agency customers require secure devices for their production implementations of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). What Research in Motion needs to think about, however, is that not all BlackBerry users need this level of security. Can you imagine Dell or IBM disabling Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in all their laptops because it is against corporate policy of a few of their customers? They would never go to lengths that drastic. They would, and do, give the administrators of those organisations the ability to disable that functionality when the devices are set up.
This is why Research in Motion should add the ability to enable or disable Bluetooth on BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Let the organization decide the level of security that they want to implement. Some organisations don’t want Bluetooth enabled at all so even the handicapped version is still seen as a security vulnerability. Research in Motion still makes over half it’s revenue from BlackBerry handheld sales so they need to be careful not to send customers to competition with more functionality on their handhelds such as Microsoft, Good Technology, and others.
I totally agree, RIM should let the user or Admin decide what they would like for a security policy. If all companies turned it off an limited Bluetooth there would be no such thing to begin with.
Laptops are being made and have been made with Wireless NICs for years now they are by default turned off and the uses or admins have to turn it on if they want it on. The goverment probally can’t even order a laptop without wireless at this point but they can turn it off via policies and or locking the CMOS. Any company that uses Blackberries that there might be an issue for security actually uses a BES so they can control everything the device does and or has. They can actually kill a BB remotely, wipe all data from it and lock the BB and even display a reward message on the screen.
They are coming out with the add on security but guess what you have one more thing to carry around, I had a non bluetooth phone and used a bluetooth adaptor for the wireless ear piece and moved to the 7520 so I didn’t have to have the extra adapter to carry around. Now they make it so you have to carry one around I had just as much bluetooth with my i90 that was not and is not a bluetooth phone as I have with a 7520 that is a bluetooth phone. The only difference is I had to have a adaptor on the i90 to make it bluetooth, the 7520 is bluetooth by itself but doesn’t do anymore than the adaptor since that was just for voice bluetooth also.
I just hope if enough people complain they might enable it and it wont require buying yet another BB and only a software update.