Research In Motion (RIM) has announced BlackBerry Management Center, a free online service for small businesses to centrally manage company- or employee-owned BlackBerry smartphones.

The Canadian smartphone and tablet maker stated that the management of these mobile devices occurs via the cloud and this service will also allow small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to protect work-related content that is stored on these handsets. It is designed for businesses with up to 100 BlackBerry smartphones that access email services from an internet service provider (ISP) or web-based email services the likes of Gmail, Hotmail, as well as Yahoo! Mail.

BlackBerry Management Center makes it easy to manage company- or employee-owned smartphones in the cloud, and assists in minimising the risk associated with lost or stolen handsets.

Small businesses can use the service to:

• Wirelessly back up BlackBerry smartphones automatically on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to aid in the recovery of lost business-related content stored on the handset.

• Protect content on an employee’s lost or stolen BlackBerry smartphone by remotely locking it and, if necessary, wiping the contents, as well as the microSD card.

• Locate a lost BlackBerry smartphone by remotely locking it, initiating a loud ring, and displaying a message on the home-screen.

• Easily restore the settings and content on a new or replacement device

• Reset a password

BlackBerry Management Center is available from the company’s website.

In related news RIM also recently unveiled five new BlackBerry smartphones and made the latest version (BBM 6) of its BlackBerry Messenger IM application available.