Thursday, September 17, 2015

The Return of Blackberry


            As most people who use a smart phone already know, Blackberry has almost been completely phased out in the mobile phone market. In terms of market share, Blackberry held 42% of the market share in 2009, but according to comScore.com Blackberry has about 1.5% of that same market now. However, Blackberry is attempting to become successful again with the company’s $425 million cash purchase of Good Technology, a mobile device management vendor.
            
            Blackberry has historically been a company focused on business electronics that are also secure. Therefore, it makes sense that Blackberry would acquire a company that provides security for mobile devices. Even though the Blackberry brand name is mostly irrelevant in this day and age, it now has a product that can be used on all mobile platforms. This cross-platform compatibility is huge for Blackberry since it can sell to the entire market of mobile device users and not just the 1.5% it previously catered to.

            This isn’t the first security service that Blackberry has acquired either. Last year Blackberry purchased Secusmart, a voice encryption service and in April purchased WatchDox, an enterprise file security company. It appears that Blackberry is trying to steer away from their decreasingly popular mobile devices and focus their time and effort on enterprise security. These purchases have made Blackberry the owner of an incredibly powerful EMM, or enterprise mobility management service that not only has over 70 security certificates, but can be used on all mobile platforms. Since more companies are using mobile devices in the workplace with products such as the iPad as a cash register or tablets that Verizon employees can use to change services for their customers, more businesses need mobile security. Furthermore, mobile devices are being used for increasingly risky tasks as far as security goes, such as the cash register  mentioned before that tracks and deposits all of a store’s income.

            This move by Blackberry can be seen as two struggling companies coming together in hopes of being able to work better with the companies’ combined resources. Good Technology, like Blackberry has nearly lost all market share for its service. This decline is clearly shown in their S1 that they filed in May of last year, showing that it has over $24 million worth of debt and have been forced to let several employees go. The purchase immediately helped Good Technology by relieving their debt and rivalry with Blackberry’s security services, but only time will tell if the two companies can make something relevant together.


            The article used for this post is pretty full of information on the economic and technology aspects, but it fails to address certain points regarding how Blackberry could market its new service and what rivals are in the company’s new market? It’s great that Blackberry can release a product that there is an increasing demand for, but where do its newly acquired resources put it in relation to the resources of its rivals in the EMM market.


Work Cited:

 Lella, Adam. "ComScore Reports July 2015 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share." ComScore,  Inc. 3 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Sept. 2015. 

 Miller, Ron. "BlackBerry Goes Shopping Again, Buys Good Technology." TechCrunch. Crunch    Network, 4 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Sept. 2015. 


Read More: http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/04/blackberry-goes-shopping-again-buys-good-technology/#.n8mgdw:POe0

By Alex Batton

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