BlackBerry, Microsoft enter partnership for Teams integration

BlackBerry has announced the integration of its critical event management platform, BlackBerry AtHoc, with Microsoft Teams.

As the newly remote workforce adopts productivity tools to get work done and stay connected during the coronavirus pandemic, organisations need to establish IT and security rules for extended virtual working, the company says.

"Integrating BlackBerry AtHoc will ensure that any organisation managing critical events using Teams is able to contact, alert, and account for everyone within the organisation directly through the Teams platform should an incident transpire," it says.

"Already implemented across multiple industries such as federal and local government, public safety and law enforcement, financial services, manufacturing and healthcare, BlackBerry AtHoc gives peace of mind against a range of risks, from service degradation to natural disasters and industrial accidents.

"AtHoc helps mitigate operational disruption when an incident occurs and gives users visibility into the status of employees and assets to ensure critical business operations are not affected."

David Wiseman, vice president of secure communications at BlackBerry, says with BlackBerry AtHoc, incident response managers are able to publish as many alerts and updates as needed to any device.

"This new capability to manage the incident response process through Teams will streamline communications and give greater visibility over the recovery progress of an unfolding event," he explains.

"This is a great opportunity for us to expand our footprint and provide necessary support to those who are already using the Teams platform.

BlackBerry AtHoc allows organisations to safely and securely communicate with their workforce and other organisations through any device. BlackBerry AtHoc leverages the power of mobility, hybrid cloud, and the IP network to deliver a unified and secure end-to-end solution capable of real-time collaboration, keeping critical business operations running.

Teams creates very specific organisational structures within the platform that can be used to rapidly contact specific users or groups through AtHoc. Delivering unified and end-to-end communications, incident response teams can quickly and securely notify the correct people of an incident and establish a two-way dialogue that keeps all parties informed without needing to leave the Teams application.

"BlackBerry AtHoc integrations with Microsoft Teams are important for our mutual customers," says Mike Ammerlaan, director of Microsoft 365 ecosystem marketing at Microsoft Corp.

"Providing business continuity assurance is a priority and this integration delivers an enhanced tool for ongoing, secure communications.

Earlier this week BlackBerry announced it had entered into a partnership with ServiceNow, in a bid to integrate the BlackBerry AtHoc service within the Now platform for rapid crisis communications and IT service management.