IntraLinks brings secure enterprise-grade file access to iPhone and iPad

There’s a real problem with iPhones and iPads: Enterprise security. When your chairman is looking at emails from his granddaughter on his iPad, there’s no issue.

Things start to get tricky, from a compliance point of view, when he’s accessing ‘market moving information’ (e.g. an acquisition proposal) on his iPad whilst sitting in a Starbucks. Generally speaking, standard email just doesn’t cut it. It’s not secure enough.

Now RIM’s BlackBerry solution (including viewing email via PlayBook) typical passes muster in this context but with so many executives insisting on accessing information via their funky iPads, there are headaches galore for enterprise IT and security teams.

There are quite a few rather smart ultra-secure email offerings, most notably Good for Enterprise.

But when it comes to accessing and reviewing super-sensitive corporate file libraries on the go, there’s a pressing need to secure it.

In many companies I work with, DropBox works beautifully. Access it on the desktop, on the web and via mobile device. It’s lovely. And their recent terms & conditions update makes them a lot more enterprise friendly. For zero or low security documents, DropBox is an ideal file sharing mechanism.

If you’re trying to share the results of live clinical trials with 100 doctors and executives around the world, you need alternative arrangements. Likewise if you’re part of the legal team putting together a multi-billion-dollar acquisition, you need to access, review and share highly sensitive documents across departments and company boundaries. And you need to do this easily and with best-practice security policies in place.

Enter IntraLinks.

They’ve been doing this for years — and today they announced the last piece in the puzzle for a lot of companies: Mobile support. You can now take your draft billion dollar purchase proposal on the train thanks to the IntraLinks Secure Mobile Solution. It’s compatible with both iPad and iPhone. IntraLinks ‘maintains’ all files within their own purpose-built secure environment.

This is going to make a LOT of peoples’ lives that little bit easier.

IntraLinks already has well over a million users and serves 800 of the Fortune 1,000. So I suspect there are quite a lot of customers chomping at the bit already.

Let’s hear from Fahim Siddiqui, Chief Product Officer of IntraLinks:

“As business is increasingly conducted away from the desktop, there is a real need for enterprise-grade apps that provide organizations with flexibility that don’t sacrifice security.

The IntraLinks mobile solution takes the powerful capabilities to exchange and manage critical business information outside the firewall on a PC and laptop, and offers the ability to do the same from an iPad and iPhone. IntraLinks users will continue to benefit from the same key features such as the ability to maintain full document tracking and audit compliance while receiving information in the palm of their hand.”

Here’s an overview video of the iPad/iPhone product:

To get an idea of just how important this kind of solution is, have a read of how the company describes the benefits of its services to investment banks working on IPOs:

– IntraLinks Exchanges’ anytime, anywhere access ensures teams of 100+ stakeholders, regardless of geography and timezone, can collaborate and co-develop letters of intent/engagement, draft registration statements, financial statements, BOD presentations and roadshow presentations.

– Controlled document access and document tracking of the type, amount and timing of review provide insight enabling tighter management of resources and more productive meetings by the IPO team.

– Complete archive with full audit trail, ensures underwriters maintain a compliant record of due diligence.

You can find out more about the IntraLinks Secure Mobile service here.