BlackBerry, once the undisputed leader of smartphones for the business market, has seen its status as corporate IT Most Favored Nation erode rapidly over the past decade.
The incursion of Apple iOS and Android phones on its domination over the business mobile device category has left BlackBerry scrambling to find a category where it can once again reign supreme.
Still financially challenged, BlackBerry has been attempting a comeback through the introduction of new devices and a new OS, and now it has acquired Secusmart GmbH, a German company that specializes in making voice and data encryption technology that protects against eavesdropping.
Secusmart technology is compatible with the BlackBerry 10 smartphone series, and is already in use with both the German and Canadian governments. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has already been burned by NSA spying on her cell phone, is now a user of Secusmart encryption.
Since BlackBerry already has a compatibility relationship with Secusmart, its acquisition of the Düsseldorf-based company is an understandable step.
What happened to BlackBerry over the past decade should be an introductory course in any MBA program. When the Apple iPhone was introduced, the smartphone became primarily an entertainment and media device, and despite its initial lack of acceptance by the business community, the iPhone (and the subsequent release of an army of Android smartphones) simply overwhelmed the market. In the meantime, BlackBerry's devices and operating systems failed miserably to compete with iOS and Android on the consumer side of the market, and as Apple and Android honed the business capabilities of their operating systems, BlackBerry was essentially cornered.
The acquisition of Secusmart, then, is BlackBerry's attempt to gain back its IT share by stressing its data encryption and security strengths, which was always one of the company's strong points. The integration of Secusmart technology into BlackBerry mobile devices will also help the company compete with the new, security-centric Blackphone that is beginning to gain traction in the business marketplace.
"The acquisition of Secusmart underscores our focus on addressing growing security costs and threats ranging from individual privacy to national security. This acquisition bolsters our security solutions with leading voice and data encryption and antieavesdropping technologies, and furthers BlackBerry's security leadership in end-to-end mobile solutions," said John Chen, executive chairman and CEO of BlackBerry.
BlackBerry noted that its customers include all G7 governments, 16 of the G20 governments, 10 out of 10 of the largest international enterprises in the pharmaceutical, legal and automotive industries as well as the five largest oil and gas companies. It also has the only mobility solution that has Full Operational Capability (FOC) approval to operate in U.S. Department of Defense networks.
