Last week the BlackBerry® 10 Jam World Tour – Enterprise Edition was held in Madrid, Spain. 121 developers took part in some very interesting sessions, demonstrations, and workshops. With these events, Research In Motion® (RIM®) aims to help enterprise developers find out what the BlackBerry® 10 platform has to offer and provide experts in building applications to show developers the wide variety of tools currently available. These tools include BlackBerry® WebWorks™ using HTML5, CSS and Javascript®, and the NDK/Cascades™ leveraging C++. On this occasion, attendees also become versed in BlackBerry MDS-CS, BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10, and BlackBerry advantages in security.

In the opening session, Eduardo Fernández, Managing Director at RIM for Southwest Europe, welcomed all attendees with a message of RIM’s dedication to the enterprise segment, highlighting that RIM continues to work tirelessly to respond to the needs of all businesses. Gregg Ostrowski, Senior Director of Enterprise Developer Partnerships, talked about the importance of developing for enterprise and highlighted the benefits that BlackBerry 10 brings to enterprise developers, such as the ability to create applications with behind-the-firewall connections, secure information with VPN connection, applications with the ability to be pushed to devices by administrators, leading development standards such as HTML5 and C++, and full management of applications with BlackBerry App World™ for Work. He also offered an exciting live demonstration of the BlackBerry 10 platform on a Dev Alpha device.

Gregg also laid out certain services and features that are vital for enterprise developers, such as BlackBerry® Balance™, which helps employees separate their professional data from their work content. BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion was also positioned as a trusted solution for tackling the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, as it allows IT administrators to manage multiple platforms in a secure environment.

In the afternoon, developers attended sessions where they were shown how to build enterprise applications for RIM’s new upcoming operating system including enterprise mobility, enterprise architecture, and enterprise design. During the Jam Session, they were also given the opportunity to attend hands-on labs with the BlackBerry WebWorks and Cascades NDK tooling to get an all-encompassing look at BlackBerry 10, thus broadening their building capacities. Developers were delighted to discover the potential of the new BlackBerry 10 platform, and to get familiar with the development framework options.

To further ensure that enterprise developers have the tools they need, they were also offered a free 20-user version of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion. This allows them to build their applications with the direct VPN-like connection, leverage Push, and manage their applications using BlackBerry Balance technology. Qualifying enterprise developers were also given a BlackBerry Dev Alpha device, providing them with the chance to test their enterprise applications before submitting them to the BlackBerry App World.

The BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour – Enterprise Edition events continue. Check www.blackberryjamenterprise.com for all of the details!

As more and more smartphones and tablets enter the enterprise, there is increasing desire to extend enterprise data beyond the desktop and into mobile. There are also more complexities when developing and deploying an app in an enterprise environment, such as data and device management, security, cross-platform and cross-device development, and connectivity for your application. With its core DNA rooted in the enterprise, the BlackBerry® platform addresses these issues with app development and deployment solutions – and as a developer, these can be leveraged to deliver a richer and more secure application.

The guide posted below will help developers make the right development decisions, leveraging the right tools and resources. This can save valuable time and money, and ultimately help build better applications. Key topics covered are:

• Overview of BlackBerry® WebWorks™
• Building HTML5 Applications with Native-Like Functionality
• Using Existing Web Development Frameworks
• BlackBerry WebWorks Resources
• Tools and Code to Help You Get Started Today
• Deploying and Managing Client Applications
• Securing Enterprise Content

Check out the guide below and share your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

BlackBerry® Jam Enterprise kicks off next week in Toronto and London. This time around, we’ll be focusing on Enterprise app development. These events differ from the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour in that they are geared towards developers looking to create apps for their organization, or for the general business community. Strategy and capability for deploying apps within organizations is also a key theme that we’ll be addressing.

Join us in North America, EMEA, & LATAM across these dates and locations:

North America

October 23 – Toronto, ON, Canada
October 25 – Ottawa, ON, Canada
November 8 – Washington, DC, USA
November 13 – New York, NY, USA
November 28 – Chicago, IL, USA

EMEA

October 23 – London, UK
November 1 – Amsterdam, Netherlands
November 6 – Frankfurt, Germany
November 15 – Madrid, Spain

Latin America

November 6 – São Paulo, Brazil
November 16 – Mexico City, Mexico

As with prior BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour events, registration is free but space is limited. A number of BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices will also be distributed to those that are eligible. So what are you waiting for? Come out to a full day of events dedicated to providing the Enterprise developer community with insights on the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform: its strengths, the vision, and how Enterprise developers can build apps that deliver real business value.

Sign up today and we’ll see you there!

We will have a number of exciting topics to cover during the webinar, including the following:

• What is BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion?
• BlackBerry Balance technology
  • Personal & Corporate perimeters
  • Protecting data at rest
  • Enterprise application connectivity & security
• Enterprise application management
• Mobile application integration

I am very excited to share the vast improvements that we have made in deploying your BlackBerry 10 application within the enterprise, along with enabling your enterprise application to securely connect to your corporate backend and provide a fully integrated experience.

Registration is open now, so please sign up to reserve your spot and I will see you on August 30th.

As someone who has been engaged with our enterprise customers for the past 11 years, I’ve had the luxury of seeing so many well-built applications really change the way in which a business operates. These range from simple tasks like allowing an internal intranet page to be viewed on a smartphone to fully integrated workflow applications. I’ve also seen many of them never leave the proof-of-concept state. The number one reason that these fail is because in the end they cannot interact with real data, meaning that they do not have any connectivity to a backend data source where the relevant information resides. Unfortunately what often happens is that the application is built first and then shown off to executives and stakeholders with dummy data. Once they’re committed, the developer or project owner faces the sizable challenge of connecting a front-end mobile application to back-end data. This often requires additional investment and can prolong the development.

When building custom enterprise apps for BlackBerry® smartphones connected to a BlackBerry® Enterprise Server or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets connected to BlackBerry® Device Service, we’ve worked to make it simple to create this type of connection. A component is available called BlackBerry MDS Connection Service (or MDS-CS), which helps to provide a VPN-like connection to the backend, allowing your application to easily connect to important data. It connects apps on BlackBerry devices to information stored on an organization’s servers or web servers, processing push and pull requests for data. Data conversion, optimization, authentication methods, access control, and much more can be configured using MDS-CS.

Take this scenario, for example: You have a workflow application to provide your executives with the ability to approve a time-sensitive contract. In this instance, you can build an application for BlackBerry smartphones without trying to reinvent the connection; it’s already there. Unlike VPN connections, there is no need for the end user to invoke a session, nor do you need to build that into your app. It is simply just there.

Here’s a high level overview of the architecture that allows for that inherent connection in BlackBerry devices. Develop along these lines with confidence; MDS-CS will remain part of the future for the BlackBerry Enterprise solution.

Let’s get that app off of the drawing board and into the hands of a mobile workforce – don’t forget connectivity, and when it does come time, consider the elements that are already in place with BlackBerry smartphones and tablets connected through enterprise servers. Learn more by checking out the Feature and Technical Overview for MDS Connection Service.

Has your organization developed a custom application? How does it connect to back-end data? Share in the comments below.