Research in Motion needs a way round ban

Dubai: Research in Motion (RIM) will have to find some way conform to local regulations if it wants to continue to expand into the region, says one local expert.

Kenneth Kriel, the chief technology officer for Dubai-based Technology Partners, said a lot of companies make the mistake of not conforming to the local regulations.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said on Sunday that it would suspend RIM's BlackBerry services on October 11 because of the social, judicial and national security threats posed by the technology.

"Are they not willing to conform to local regulations? The UAE is a regional business hub and there isn't anyone who isn't looking to grow and expand into the region."

Similarities

Kriel says he see no difference between the issues that exist between RIM and UAE and those that Google and China fought over several months ago.

As part of the deal allowing Google into China, the company agreed to locate its data servers in China, but later pulled out of the country over security concerns. Kriel called Google's decision a "mistake".

Kriel says the Canada-based RIM has a number of various options, including having the BlackBerry Messenger service locally hosted, which included a cloud computing option, or even opening its own data centre in the region, similar to a solution being suggested by the Indian government in that country.

Kriel says that market size should not prohibit RIM from opening a data centre here.

"I don't think the issues involves the number of customers," he said. "RIM uses proprietary technology, which can be scaled to service the number of customers."

Security

Neil Batstone, a business development manager for Verizon based in Dubai, said that having the ability to make secure transmissions are very important to businesses, but that businesses can set up communication procedures to mitigate the risk to sensitive data, such as restricting the transmission of intellectual property to laptop or PC-based communications.

"Most businesses would look at balancing risk in areas of communications, human resources, and logistics unless they were operating in a niche area.

Kriel adds that while the TRA has announced it will suspend the BlackBerry services, the agency has not prohibited businesses from using the technology the system is based on. That technology, called a Virtual Private Network, established a secure connection between two computers and is commonly used by businesses.

"The TRA did not address VPN," Kriel said. "Therefore, I do think the TRA respects the business community enough to allow them to protect their internal data."