BlackBerry's attempt to rise from the ashes took a major step upward with the acquisition of Secusmart, a German company specializing in high-security voice and data encryption and antieavesdropping technology.
Because, as Mick Jagger once said, "Who's listening? Well, I don't really know."
The deal to acquire Secusmart was made easier by the pre-existing relationship between the two companies. Secusmart software has been compatible with BlackBerry devices for quite some time.
"We have addressed eavesdropping concerns with Secusmart, who has been a partner since 2009, and we currently have the SecuSUITE for BlackBerry 10. It's a solution used by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security for classified communications between the country's top officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel," said BlackBerry CEO John Chen.
Secusmart, the acquired party, is happy to be riding shotgun in BlackBerry's drive to re-establishing it as the premier force in enterprise mobile security.
Secusmart Managing Director Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle said, "This transaction is a fantastic opportunity to accelerate growth in the market for high-end secure communications solutions, driven by the need to combat electronic eavesdropping and data theft. Secusmart and BlackBerry's solution already meets the highest security requirements of the German federal authorities and NATO for restricted communications. We see significant opportunities to introduce Secusmart's solutions to more of BlackBerry's government and enterprise customers around the world."
Last year, the world shook with the news leaked by Edward Snowden and others that the U.S. government, mostly through the National Security Agency (NSA), was obtaining phone records and listening in on land and cell phone communications of American citizens and foreign nationals -- including German Chancellor Merkel.
It's a much more privacy- and security-oriented communications world now. Private citizens, businesses and governments are all scrambling to find the best ways to secure their data and voice privacy.
BlackBerry is jumping on these new concerns as its entrée to viability and growth. Already in competition with the new Blackphone, a security-obsessed smartphone, BlackBerry would like to leapfrog its other, larger competitors in the smartphone market with the security advantage over those other primarily entertainment and media devices. Still financially challenged, it has been attempting a comeback through the introduction of new devices and a new OS.
BlackBerry may choose to become first and foremost a security company, adding a hardware solution that cannot be offered by security software makers such as Symantec, McAfee and Kaspersky. That's where Secusmart comes in, integrating its software solutions into BlackBerry's hardware to create mobile devices with unmatched security credentials.
