How BlackBerry transformed from a ‘basket of parts’ into a money-making cybersecurity company

BlackBerry Ltd.’s purchase of Cylance Inc. for US$1.4 billion in November wasn’t exactly a blockbuster deal in the tech industry, where the big boys post billions of dollars in quarterly profits, and A-list IPOs are valued in the tens of billions.

“The fact that we were able to write a cash cheque for $1.4 billion — that’s not a trivial amount of money — to buy a company, all cash, should tell everybody that the turnaround is definitely more than over.” Today, BlackBerry executives would have you believe the company is drawing on years of secure communications expertise to position itself as a global cybersecurity leader in a burgeoning new market.

What followed was a classic rags-to-riches-to-rags tale, as Apple Inc., Google LLC and other global behemoths took over the smartphone market, forcing BlackBerry to call in a turnaround expert, John Chen. With that in mind, Chen’s personality perhaps better fits in with the careful suspiciousness of a stereotypical cybersecurity CEO than an enthusiastic, gadget-pushing smartphone manufacturer exec.The Cylance acquisition, with its big price tag, was BlackBerry’s most eye-catching announcement recently, but it was just the cherry on top of a busy period for the company, which kicked off in September when BlackBerry first announced something called Spark.

“We’re very excited to be able to sit down and work with Amazon on how to bridge enterprise to consumer,” he said at the New York event. “It’s gotta be rock solid, and we’re the best in the world at it,” said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of the QNX division. Cylance was one of the pioneers in building artificial intelligence threat detection systems, using machine learning to find patterns of malicious behaviour and block attacks before they happen.

“I would say that we’re more waiting than wandering. We know that this hit in IoT communication is real. I mean, the needs are there. There’s no turning back.” Some IoT device makers are writing their own software to create a closed ecosystem and won’t necessarily want what BlackBerry is offering. And some telcos and network providers are trying to assert their own dominance, too.

Eric Goodness, analyst, Gartner Inc. For BlackBerry to succeed, Goodness said it will need to partner with consulting companies such as Accenture or Cognizant to bring them in on large IoT projects.

And then Trudeau gave them $50 million that they didn’t need or even ask for just for a photo-op to appear that they are doing something for the economy in this election year!

Yes! How does one go from the 1 phone to persona non grata? From making billions to losing billions?

My cell phone is my point of sale. I handle all my bookings and reservation requests with my cell phone. People express confidence when they realise I use BB for all these 'secure' transactions. BB Keyone

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