BlackBerry : Software Can Lighten the Load for Today’s Business Travelers – Here’s How

Never check a bag. Roll your shirts and socks. Don't bring toiletries. Wear slip-on shoes.

All business travelers have their own list of tips and tricks for packing light and travelling efficiently. The 2009 George Clooney film Up in the Air even created a site called Ryan's Rules of Travel as part of its marketing campaign. There's a reason for that - the ever-present temptation to drag along the kitchen sink.

Even on a single-day trip, you could bring laptops, presentation tools, paper documents, tangled balls of cables and peripherals, and more. Thanks to smartphones and smart watches, however, it's possible to set out on a business trip while packed lightly.

Technology like smartwatches and VR glasses will become the next BYOD. By tapping into wearable devices as the technology matures, businesses can use them to gain a real competitive advantage, especially in jobs that are mobile, industrially-focused, and/or hands-free by nature. And BlackBerry stands ready to help them do just that.

When the Apple Watch was first available for pre-order in 2015, we announced a Good Work app for the device. Since then, we've continually improved the application, building upon the previously-supported email and calendar notifications for a richer experience. Among other things, the app allows employees to:

• Glance at notifications for upcoming meetings and see a count of read/unread emails;
• Read emails and take actions such as delete, flag or mark read/unread via gesture controls;
• View their meetings for the day and tap their watch for additional details including meetings notes;
• Drive a full PowerPoint presentation entirely from your watch;
• Join conference calls with a single touch.

When coupled with Good Work on a mobile phone or tablet, the Apple Watch app lets you bring your office wherever you go - no need to haul it along in a suitcase.

While we recognize that keeping users happy is important, we also understand that it is just as critical to keep corporate data secure. That's why BlackBerry's Good Secure EMM Suites allows IT administrators to stay in control of the Apple Watch experience via a unified management console - the same console they use to manage the rest of their other mobile devices and apps. Even better, with the Good Dynamics development tools (included in the Secure Mobility and Secure Content Suites), extending your corporate apps to any device can be headache-free, thanks to our powerful application containers and robust SDK.

Breezing through the proverbial long security line has come a long way from slip-on shoes, and travel is only the beginning. Wearable computing is poised to become the next step in mobile business transformation. As more and more business users discover the value of connected watches, glasses, and more, expect to see their presence in the workplace as well.

Just like with mobility, those businesses that can prepare for this trend in advance will thrive, while their competitors struggle to make sense of things. With our help, you can ensure you're in the former camp - not the latter.

Interested in learning more? Check out our demo of the Apple Watch app:

You can also view some of our webinars, such asGood Work: A New Way to Mobilize, Introducing Good Secure EMM Suites,Hands-on with Good Secure EMM Suites, or Making Sense of the EMM Alphabet Soup - a detailed look at MDM, MAM & MCM. Finally, be sure to have a look at theGood Work,Good Secure EMM Suites, andGood Dynamics pages on our website.