Description: This document describes the third-party application control features of the BlackBerry® Enterprise Solution and provides an overview of how you might use those features and place the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution within your network architecture to contain the threat of malware on your BlackBerry devices and your corporate network.
See the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution Security Acronym Glossary for the full terms substituted by the acronyms in this document.
BlackBerry device application platform default behavior
Java™ based BlackBerry devices are designed to provide an open platform for third-party wireless enterprise application development. Using BlackBerry MDS Studio™ and the BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE), the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution enables software developers to create third-party applications for BlackBerry devices. The BlackBerry device supports MIDlets (Java applications that use standard MIDP and CLDC APIs only) and Java applications that use the BlackBerry APIs.
BlackBerry JDE developers can create more powerful, sophisticated applications than are possible with standard Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME™). A third-party BlackBerry application can perform the following tasks on the BlackBerry device:
• communicate and share persistent storage with other third-party BlackBerry applications
• interact with native BlackBerry applications
• access user data such as calendar appointments, email messages, and contacts
By default, users can download any third-party application on Java-based BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry Device Software Version 3.6 or later using the following methods:
• by accessing a web site using the BlackBerry Browser and choosing to download the application over the wireless network
• by running the BlackBerry Application Loader on the BlackBerry Desktop Software and choosing to download the application onto the BlackBerry device using a physical connection to the computer
You can also send third-party applications to BlackBerry devices wirelessly, and install them on the BlackBerry devices automatically. Users can then run these third-party applications on their BlackBerry devices, and manage and delete those applications using the BlackBerry Application Loader on the BlackBerry Desktop Software.
You can provide a trusted application for users using the following methods:
• placing the application on a network drive or web server for users to download over the wireless network or load from a hosted web site over a physical connection to a computer
• placing the application on a network drive and using a software configuration that you define in the BlackBerry Manager to push the application to BlackBerry devices over the wireless network
Whether you push third-party applications or freely permit users to download third-party applications onto BlackBerry devices, the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution includes tools and architecture options designed to enable you to control the manual or automatic installation of third-party applications and limit the access of untrusted applications to the BlackBerry device and its resources to help prevent malware attacks on the BlackBerry device.
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