Blackberry has made a few acquisitions this year that position it as a strong enterprise security solution contender.
Good Technology, AtHoc and Watchdox were three of the key accusations, among others.
"A lot of what we do is about securing information, regardless of where it sits, whether it is on a smartphone, tablet, PC or sensor in the IOT world," says Nader Henein, Blackberry Enterprise MEA security product regional director.
Henein sys customers' privacy and security is of utmost importance to the company, which was demonstrated last month when its business was booted out of Pakistan because Blackberry refused to comply with the government's demands to access private messaging.
Despite BlackBerry losing market share in devices, IDC technology analyst John Jackson believes it still has opportunities in the enterprise segment as demands for data security in a mobile world are growing rapidly and many enterprise clients have yet to adopt the systems needed to come to grips with it.
BlackBerry secures the mobile communications of all G7 governments, 16 of the G20 governments, 10 out of 10 of the largest global banks and law firms, and the top five largest managed healthcare, investment services, and oil and gas companies.
Cross platform integration
In September, Blackberry bought rival mobile software provider Good Technology for $425 million in cash, to boost its ability to help corporate clients manage smartphones running on different operating systems.
BlackBerry said it expected to realise about $160 million in revenue from the acquisition in the first year after the deal closes - which was last month.
BlackBerry will integrate Good's software solutions and services with its own software suites to offer a solution that secures the entire mobile enterprise, across all platforms and applications while protecting personal privacy.
"BlackBerry's completion of the Good acquisition brings two leading companies in the mobile security space together to offer a secure cross-platform enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution," said Stacy Crook, Research Director, enterprise mobility at IDC. "Good brings additional value to the BlackBerry platform by offering strong application containerisation on iOS and Android, and will provide solutions to containerise custom and third-party applications."
Critical communication
Earlier this year, BlackBerry acquired AtHoc, maker of a secure software platform for crisis communication.
The AtHoc software platform enables people, devices and organisations to exchange critical information in real-time during business continuity and life safety operations. The platform securely connects to a diverse set of endpoints, including smartphones, desktops, digital displays, radios, IP phones, sirens, fire panels and speakers to send out alerts and coordinate safety routes.
AtHoc protects more than 70% of the US federal government agencies, including the departments of Defence, Homeland Security and Human and Health Services. It is also used in high technology corporations, healthcare institutions and airports.
Smart documents
Blackberry bought Watchdox, a data security company offering secure enterprise file-sync-and-share (EFSS) solutions earlier this year.
Watchdox is an application that allows users to protect, share and work with their files on any device. Its security travels with shared files on both mobile and desktop devices to give organisations full visibility and control over how files are edited, copied, printed or forwarded.
Users have the ability to browse, access, search and view word documents, PDF and image files. They can securely share links to content with colleagues as well as third party collaborators, without putting corporate data at risk.
Its offering also allows end users to revoke access or delete files remotely, enables secure mobile productivity for repositories both in the cloud and on premises, and gives administrators the ability to lock or remove access to files compromised in a data breach.
Share