[Corbu]

BlackBerry Inks Software Deal With U.S. Senate - WSJ

NEW YORK— BlackBerry Ltd. said Tuesday it won a “multimillion-dollar” contract to supply its crisis communication software to the U.S. Senate’s chief security service, building on the Canadian company’s efforts to reinvent itself as a provider of mobile-security software aimed at government and business customers.

Under the five-year contract, the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms office will use the software to power its emergency mass notification system, used in the event of an attack to alert people working and visiting the U.S. Capitol complex -- including the White House, Senate and Pentagon -- and to coordinate a security response, BlackBerry said.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, which didn’t specify the contract’s value, said its crisis communication software services more than 3 million U.S. government employees.

“We line up what we believe is the most robust end to end, deepest technology stack in the area of security,” BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen told an audience here during the company’s annual conference on mobile security.

BlackBerry faces increasing pressure to boost sales of its mobile security software offerings and patents as it struggles to augment software and services revenue with sales of new smartphones. Stung by a 2013 attempt to compete against Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. in the device market, BlackBerry has refocused its attention on developing new handsets aimed at traditional corporate and government customers that emphasize productivity and security.

Still, the total number of phones BlackBerry has sold since its launch in September of the first in a string of new devices dropped to 500,000 at the end of May from 2.1 million at the end of August 2014.

In its latest fiscal quarter, BlackBerry’s reported a 39% decline in overall revenue amid slumping handset sales. By contrast, its software and services operations generated a year over year gain of about 3.5% in the same period and BlackBerry has said it expects the segment to generate 30% revenue growth in its current fiscal year.

One challenge BlackBerry’s security software business faces is convincing prospective enterprise customers that its technology works across different mobile operating platforms, said Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor known for his efforts to bring down the city’s crime rate during his time in office.

Mr. Giuliani, who flew to New York from the Republican Party convention in Cleveland to speak at the BlackBerry conference, said among the fastest-growing forms of crime is the cyberattack, including national security breaches and efforts to steal money, identities and trade secrets. Mr. Giuliani is currently chairman of the cybersecurity, privacy and crisis management practice at law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Mr. Giuliani, who wasn’t paid to appear at the BlackBerry event, said the company’s security remains untarnished among enterprise customers but that many potential customers still mistakenly believe it only works with BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry has updated all of its mobile security offerings to also work on operating systems offered by Apple, Android and others, as more workers have migrated to rival devices. Mr. Giuliani said after his speech that educating customers on this change remains a hurdle for BlackBerry.

Mr. Giuliani and BlackBerry said they don’t currently have a business relationship, but they are in talks to form one.

BlackBerry’s optimism for mobile security is fueled by its belief that companies and governments will boost investments to better protect proprietary information and to help guard against rising insurance and other costs. BlackBerry released a survey on Wednesday that found 86% of 1,000 executives polled still worry about potential hacks. The survey, though, also showed that 82% of respondents indicated mobile-security precautions cause some frustrations for employees and could hinder worker productivity, which could pose a potential barrier to winning new business.

Mr. Chen is unfazed, arguing that companies won’t have a choice but to invest in cybersecurity amid growing pressure from regulators and governments to protect against financial losses and national security breaches.

“The regulators come in and say (to boards) ‘show me your cybersecurity’,” said Mr. Chen, who is a director on the boards of BlackBerry, Wells Fargo & Co. and Walt Disney Co.

[W Hoa]

BlackBerry will discuss new devices next week | CrackBerry.com

If you were hoping for new device news to come out of the BlackBerry Security Summit, BlackBerry CEO John Chen put an end to that possibility early on during the event. However, we do now know when to expect some.
......
According to John Chen, next week will be the time to discuss new devices and for that, his colleague Ralph Pini, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager for Devices will be handling the conversations.

[davemason2k]

Blackberry stock flat lining for a while now. I really hope Chen proves everyone wrong and shows us something in the next earnings call. It seems like they have potential in software, but it all seems so far away. Stuff like car technology and Internet of Things are in the early stages and Blackberry has a lot of competition even if it becomes huge. The phone business seems like a hail mary at this point. I mean unless Blackberry innovates, there's no reason for people to buy one over an Iphone or any other Android phone. I'm rooting for Mr. Chen! He's done great things in the past at former companies and thats the main reason I invested in BBRY. I'm betting on him!

[app_Developer]

Blackberry stock flat lining for a while now. I really hope Chen proves everyone wrong and shows us something in the next earnings call. It seems like they have potential in software, but it all seems so far away. Stuff like car technology and Internet of Things are in the early stages and Blackberry has a lot of competition even if it becomes huge...

I would agree that IoT is probably way off in the future in terms of any real impact on earnings.

But even if all they do is continue their path to 30% growth this year, I'd be pretty satisfied.

If they can de-risk phones or drop them, the stock price will reflect that growth IMO. But they have to prove that still.

[bbjdog]

Blackberry stock flat lining for a while now. I really hope Chen proves everyone wrong and shows us something in the next earnings call. It seems like they have potential in software, but it all seems so far away. Stuff like car technology and Internet of Things are in the early stages and Blackberry has a lot of competition even if it becomes huge. The phone business seems like a hail mary at this point. I mean unless Blackberry innovates, there's no reason for people to buy one over an Iphone or any other Android phone. I'm rooting for Mr. Chen! He's done great things in the past at former companies and thats the main reason I invested in BBRY. I'm betting on him!

It's a mistake to use the word Innovates in the same sentence with iPhone and Android phones, by the way have you heard of the BlackBerry Priv!

Change of Topic!

Corbu thanks for the reading material today, cheers and all the best!



Posted via my BlackBerry Passport

[Corbu]

Thanks bbjdog.

More stuff:
Giuliani Says BlackBerry Can Help Make the World Safe Again - Bloomberg

[Corbu]

How BlackBerry CEO Chen Looks at the Smartphone Market

Why BlackBerry CEO Chen Doesn't Worry About Smartphone Market Share

In a Q&A with reporters, BlackBerry's John Chen explained why the company doesn't have to be a big player in smartphones to continue to sell them.

NEW YORK—BlackBerry CEO and executive chairman John Chen couldn't have made it more clear: His company doesn't worry about its smartphone market share anymore because such statistics are not relevant to BlackBerry's ongoing future as a security software business.

In a revealing and intimate Q&A interview with reporters here at the third annual BlackBerry Security Summit, Chen said that even as his company now gets most of its sales and revenue from software instead of hardware as it did in its past, smartphones will continue to be part of its offerings until there are no more reasons to sell them.

"Why am I still in the handset business?" he asked. "First of all, if I came to you [and talked about] a billion dollar software company … that is making money … that does [Internet of things] … and that does embedded technology … you would never ask me a question about handsets" and their market share, he said.

Chen even expressed a bit of friendly aggravation about the constant questions from journalists over the last two years about BlackBerry's continuing move to specialize in software instead of hardware.

Instead of smartphone market share being key to BlackBerry, Chen said that reporters "have conditioned [themselves] that you must ask that question" every time they write about BlackBerry or speak with Chen. "You are sounding like my wife" when she brings up something he might have done wrong in the past, he said with a smile.

From a mathematical point of view, however, it still makes sense to sell smartphones because, despite their lower margin compared with software, they still continue to add to the company's bottom line, he said.

"You have a piece of business that will never yield the kind of margin that a software business will yield," so you scale properly and make the most of what you can do, he said. About 39 percent of the company's revenue comes from software today, compared with about 31 percent from hardware, he added.

And even if the company would eventually decide to drop the sales of its smartphones in the future, it can't be done overnight, said Chen, because that would adversely affect customers who have been using the devices for many years. "Before you get out, you've got to provide a soft landing for your customers. It is a lot more difficult to do than people think."

Such questions were raised again earlier in July when BlackBerry announced that it is dropping the production of its BlackBerry Classic smartphone, eWEEK reported recently. The demise of the Classic, with its physical QWERTY keyboard, came just a few days after the U.S. Senate revealed its plans to stop offering BlackBerry phones to members after its existing supplies of the company's handsets are distributed.

The moves, though unrelated, "could offer more support for the widely held industry beliefs that BlackBerry is continuing on a road map that will see it become a mobile security software company in place of its former position as a powerhouse in the enterprise smartphone market just 10 years ago," wrote eWEEK.

Not so, Chen said at the security summit. "You media [members] have played it up. The Classic [reaching the] end of its life is a simple thing" as smartphone models get outdated and are replaced, he said. "Apple doesn't make the iPhone 4 anymore, but no one writes that Apple is getting out of the iPhone business. When we remove products, people start rumoring that the handset is dead or the keyboard is dead."

If BlackBerry ever does decide to exit handset production of its own, the company could choose to license its designs and products and let another company build and support them, Chen added. "Obviously, that is a different level" of business, he said, but "as long as I can stay in the hardware business and provide a soft landing for customers, I should do that. That's the type of war I face every day."

BlackBerry's fall from dominating the enterprise smartphone market has been swift and stunning. In early 2006, before the first iPhones appeared from Apple, half of all smartphones sold were BlackBerry models. By 2009, though, its share of the global smartphone market was down to 20 percent. The company continues to face growing competition from Apple, Samsung, Google and others.

The company has been having a tough time financially for some while. In late June, BlackBerry reported a net loss of $670 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, compared with a net loss of $238 million in the fourth quarter. The company's GAAP revenue was $400 million, while its non-GAAP revenue was $424 million for the first quarter.

In April, BlackBerry announced that it would launch two new lower-priced Android smartphone models later in 2016 in an effort to win back customers and increase sales after its flagship, high-end Android Priv phone failed to catch on with buyers as much as the company had hoped. The Priv, which BlackBerry targeted at enterprise customers, might have been priced too high at about $700 when it debuted in September 2015. Earlier in April, BlackBerry dropped the price of the Priv to $649 as it tried to increase sales of the device, which features both a touch-screen and a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard.

[BanffMoose]

From Business Insider:

US Army dumps Android for iPhone 6s - Business Insider


The US Army is dumping Android for 'fast, smoother' iPhone 6s

Special forces make use of smartphones currently as a battlefield situational awareness tool. The USASOC has apparently become fed up with the Android because it often "freezes up" while performing tasks.

A US Army source not authorised to speak to the media told the online defence and acquisition journal DoD Buzz that using Android smartphones has been a problem when soldiers try to view live video feeds which stream from military drones such as the InstantEye quadcopters by PSI Tactical.

The source said that when operatives try to run a split screen displaying both the a map of the route and the video feed from the drone, the Android smartphone freezes, won't refresh and often needs to be restarted, which wastes time.

Gee, maybe if BlackBerry didn't make the brain dead decision to kill the PlayBook's Showcase mode that allowed videos to play while minimized when designing BB10, maybe, just maybe, BlackBerry would've been chosen. Heck, even if the battery-strained Z10 couldn't handle it, the Z30 could have, so introduction in 10.3.1 or even 10.3.2 would've been OK.

Thank you Mr. Dumas whoever you really are, for such a great call!


(yes, I am still bitter about no showcase mode. Would have been killer in 2013.)


Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

Published on Jul 19, 2016
Former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, reiterates the importance of cybersecurity at the BlackBerry Security Summit event, held in New York City on July 19th, 2016.

[masterful]

How BlackBerry CEO Chen Looks at the Smartphone Market

The wife comments

Posted via my BlackBerry PRIV

[fanBBRY]

Anyone else notice? Looks like a huge purchase of BB.TSE (about 4 Million shares), in the last hour or so... Dont see any new news.

[anon(580947)]

Yes, apparently it was for 3.5million shares at around 11:30am. Most volume on tsx since December's ER. Someone knows something?

Posted via CB10

[masterful]

Yes, apparently it was for 3.5million shares at around 11:30am. Most volume on tsx since December's ER. Someone knows something?

Posted via CB10

Confident with the security summit yesterday !

Posted via my BlackBerry PRIV

[Corbu]

BlackBerry Security Summit 2016 Recap: Customer Wins, Giuliani Keynote, Hacking by Coffee Pots, and More [Video, Pics] | Inside BlackBerry

[Corbu]

Cisco, Symantec, Microsoft in Top 10 Cybersecurity Startup Acquirers - Fortune

[masterful]

Nice find Corbu!

Posted via my BlackBerry PRIV

[spiller]

Cisco, Symantec, Microsoft in Top 10 Cybersecurity Startup Acquirers - Fortune

And time for MSFT to buy BBRY. Else Google. It will happen....eventually.

[randall2580]

At yesterday's summit, BlackBerry said that there were changes coming in N that would help make Android more secure. This looks like what they were talking about:

Strictly Enforced Verified Boot with Error Correction | Android Developers Blog

From what I heard and read, sounds like they won't have Android to a place where they can offer it to their most secure users until N - which means BB10 is going to be around for quite some time yet IMHO

[masterful]

At yesterday's summit, BlackBerry said that there were changes coming in N that would help make Android more secure. This looks like what they were talking about:

Strictly Enforced Verified Boot with Error Correction | Android Developers Blog

From what I heard and read, sounds like they won't have Android to a place where they can offer it to their most secure users until N - which means BB10 is going to be around for quite some time yet IMHO

When is N going to be available?

Posted via my BlackBerry PRIV

[randall2580]

When is N going to be available?

Posted via my BlackBerry PRIV

They just released the last dev preview this week. It will certainly be released with the new Nexus phones. Last year the release date was Sept 29th so the guess is around that same time. There have already been some sneak peeks at the phones. Safe to say October N should be available I think

[robot_ca]

They just released the last dev preview this week. It will certainly be released with the new Nexus phones. Last year the release date was Sept 29th so the guess is around that same time. There have already been some sneak peeks at the phones. Safe to say October N should be available I think

Do you think that is the eventual plan? To phase out BB10?

Sent from my awesome Z30

[CDM76]

Do you think that is the eventual plan? To phase out BB10?

Sent from my awesome Z30

Makes sense. Especially if can get Android just as secure. Then BlackBerry could secure other companies devices and make money off that too


Posted via CB10

[fanBBRY]

BlackBerry is hosting a live online event on July 26. Although it hasn�t confirmed phones will be on the agenda, Chen said Tuesday the company would talk about them in the next �week or two� and Chief Operating Officer Marty Beard said last week the next phone launch was �very, very imminent.�

Chen has said he�ll unveil two phones between now and March 2017, both running Google�s Android operating system. A �mid-range� handset selling for about $350 is scheduled to arrive before September.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/techn...service=mobile

[randall2580]

Do you think that is the eventual plan? To phase out BB10?

Sent from my awesome Z30

Until their Android deployment has all the certifications that BB10 does, I think the point is to carry the 2. But I think if they can get Android to the point it has all of the certifications that BB10 has, it would be silly for them to continue to carry them both.

The main point being that right now we're not close, and so that is why they are so vociferous about BB10 support.

[W Hoa]

Thoughts on 2016 Blackberry Security Summit

From the article:

IoT Security Demonstration (We�re Screwed)

OK, this was scary. Presenters took over a connected coffee maker on an enterprise-class secure network. They did this by bringing up a rogue access point and sending a Wi-Fi disconnect command repeatedly to the coffee pot. Once it was disconnected, they reconnected to the more powerful rogue hot spot where they were able to get the network password and ID from the coffee pot. In about 14 minutes, they were in the secure network and pulling data. And afterward, all they had to do was power cycle the coffee pot to destroy any record of how they got in.

They then showcased how a BlackBerry solution, assuming it was used properly, would prevent this breach.