BlackBerry has long been proud of the fact that its devices have been preferred by enterprises and agencies that value security above all. The company has abundant IP (intellectual property) in this particular niche and continues to tout it. At Google I/O 2014 last month the company announced that the next version of Android will have a part of Samsung KNOX baked in so that the system’s overall security is much better. BlackBerry CEO John Chen has said that while the company applauds the efforts of its competitors in security, it doesn’t believe that their efforts are “enough” for security-minded enterprises.
“Don’t be dazzled by those who can talk the security talk,” Chen says, “Instead look to the company that has proven repeatedly it can walk the walk.”
Chen has made no secret of the fact that he’s chasing about BlackBerry’s long-lost enterprise customers again. Even since the company started bleeding market share many of its enterprise customers looked elsewhere. With advancements in security being made by Apple and Google, some of their devices were even certified to run on secure military networks, a huge blow to BlackBerry which at one time had a complete monopoly over the market.
Perhaps BlackBerry would have preferred that Google license some of its IP to improve Android security. Chen recently said at a conference that the company would certainly look into licensing its patents. For now Google has gone with Samsung’s enterprise security suite while BlackBerry continues to struggle and aims to make enterprise customers realise that its entire ecosystem is much more secure, whether the customers agree is a totally different matter.
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