Research in Motion (RIM) announced this week that that it will open its highly secure Enterprise servers to digital devices that run on both Apple Inc. and Google Inc. operating systems, Reuters reported.

The BlackBerry maker, which hopes to retain its largest business clients as their mobile arsenals of corporate email, databases and other internal applications grow, was once the dominant player in out-of-office communications for business professionals.

But as workers become more accustomed to the attributes of touch-screen devices, even though those smartphones may not boast the same security features as the BlackBerry, many have replaced devices they consider to be cumbersome and outdated with sleeker models.

The change comes as more companies allow employees to access corporate data from devices that run on Apple’s iPhone and iPad, as well as devices using Google’s Android software.

“On the one hand, this sounds like very bad news as RIM acknowledges implicitly that their Enterprise business is under attack,” said Pierre Ferragu, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein. “On the other hand, it might be the wiser thing to do in order to defend the service revenues of RIM that are about half their profits.”