Canadian handset maker BlackBerry has acquired virtual identity solutions provider Movirtu to beef up its offerings for enterprise customers.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based firm said Movirtu's virtual SIM technology allows an individual to have both a personal and business number on a single mobile device, with separate billing for voice, data and messaging usage on each number.
Therefore, employees can switch between business and personal profiles easily without carrying multiple devices or SIM cards, and charges are appropriately billed to the company and the employee, BlackBerry said in a statement.
This improves device management in bring-your-own device (BYOD) and corporate owned personally enabled (COPE) environments, it added.
"In conjunction with the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) platform, enterprise customers will be able to apply IT policies to the business number without impacting the usability of the device for personal use," it said.
The new Virtual SIM capabilities will be offered by BlackBerry through mobile operators to provide customers with multiple identity based service offerings on all major smartphone operating systems.
"The acquisition of Movirtu complements our core strategy of providing additional value added services, and it will leverage our key assets, including our BES platform, along with our existing global infrastructure which is connected to a large number of mobile operators around the world," BlackBerry Executive Chairman and CEO John Chen said.
