As many of you are aware, the launch of Blackberry® 10 is around the corner.  As the first carrier to launch BlackBerry in Canada, we’re very excited to launch the new BlackBerry 10 operating system. We have thousands of small business customers using the BlackBerry platform and there are exciting things to come on BlackBerry 10.

We are having lots of conversations with small businesses about what BlackBerry 10 means for their business – the most common question has been: “how do I integrate this new smartphone into my business and get my team up and running quickly on email?” 

Since the software and server requirements to connect new BlackBerry 10 devices are slightly different than older versions, you need to think ahead.   

Depending on what email service you use, the way you set up your new BlackBerry 10 smartphones will differ from previous versions.

Basic E-mail set up on BlackBerry 10 smartphones

If you use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! etc. for your business, moving to BlackBerry 10 is very straightforward.  You just need your new device, a micro LTE SIM card and a wireless internet plan.   Following the set-up steps on the smartphone will have you replying to and forwarding messages in no time.

Corporate E-mail Set Up on BlackBerry 10 devices

If your business has its own domain and custom email accounts – e.g. info@yourbusiness.ca – you likely use Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino or Novell Groupwise to deliver email to your mobile devices.  On previous BlackBerry devices, you would have required either a BlackBerry® Enterprise Server or BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express.

With BlackBerry 10, this is no longer a requirement. You can now use the Active Sync protocol to deliver email to these devices.  Active Sync is enabled by default in most Microsoft Exchange servers from 2007 onward. This is the same delivery protocol that is used by Apple iOS and Google Android devices, so if you have team members already using these devices at work, then your BlackBerry 10 migration will be quite simple as long as you’ve got your phone, micro LTE SIM card and a wireless internet plan.

Transferring data from older BlackBerry smartphone to new BlackBerry 10 smartphone

In both scenarios, any data stored on your older BlackBerry device can easily be transferred to your new device using BlackBerry® Link (the new name for the BlackBerry Desktop Software).  Alternatively, you can save the data from your old device on a micro SD card and put that into your new device.

We’ll have more information on BlackBerry 10 very soon so stay tuned for more updates.  If you’re a business user and would like to receive updates as they come, you can click here and sign up.