[Corbu]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/video...ware-m-a-video

BlackBerry CEO Chen on Growth, Software, Acquisitions
November 15th, 2017, 11:27 AM EST
John Chen, chief executive officer at BlackBerry, discusses growth and revenue prospects for 2018 and the type of acquisitions being sought by the company. He speaks with Bloomberg's Julie Hyman on "Bloomberg Markets." (Source: Bloomberg)

[Corbu]

Must read

Rebuilding the BlackBerry brand - ChannelBuzz.ca
by Mark Cox • November 15, 2017

BlackBerry’s senior executives discuss the progress of their strategy to rebuild the company and their brand, and where they are going on the road ahead.

BlackBerry has come back a long way over the last three years, rebuilding itself from the maker of highly secure cell phones to the provider of highly secure software and services for cell phones — among other devices. The company’s senior leadership acknowledges that they still have some distance to go to complete their turnaround. But looking forward, they see more opportunities on the landscape than dangers, and think that they are now in a much better position to take the next step forward.

John Chen, BlackBerry’s Executive Chairman and CEO, said that the issue when he took over was whether the company would survive at all.

“That was investors’ main worry — whether we would survive,” he said. “Some of them bet on us just because we were a cheap enough stock. I think that question is off the table now. The company is in very reasonable shape. We have a good ability to manage our balance sheets, and have lots of assets. I said previously that we would grow 10 to 15 per cent this year, and I still maintain we will do that. Now, to move the stock price to the next level, it’s all about continued revenue growth. I have no illusions about that.”

Chen said that BlackBerry is committed to a strategy to deliver solid long-term growth, even at the expense of making short-term windfalls to raise revenues.

“You can always get revenue by doing a bad deal,” he said. “If I’m willing to sell something worth $100 million for $50 million, I can raise revenues to make a quarter. But that has no sustainability, and you set yourself up for failure. It was a great thing to win a deal with Delphi [providing the software for self driving cars through BlackBerry QNX], but when will we see revenues from it? It will be multiple years — maybe 18 months if we are lucky, when they roll it out to their customers. But then those revenues will be repeatable over time.”

Chen said that the transition out of the low-margin hardware business is nearly complete.

“We still have a little bit of hardware — 16 million, not much left to drop really,” he said. “That business is being transitioned to licensing other manufacturers, and to royalty payments which are high margin. So we are still in the phone business, but in a different way.”

He also indicated that he expects a very healthy ratio of services to software, and to avoid the pitfall of declining services revenues in sectors like unified communications, when they transitioned from hardware-centric to software-centric models.

“The services component around software will have to be much bigger than hardware,” he stated. “The number one security breach cause at any company is from within. Part of that can be addressed with employee education processes, but part of it is also how the systems are architected together. To address these issues long-term, enterprises will have to rearchitect their application architectures and accessibility through the network or mobile infrastructures or both. That carries a lot of services.”

Chen said that much of BlackBerry’s recent growth has been driven by EMEA.

“The U.S. is likely the next area for strong growth because we are strong in regulated industries. Canada is always good because we are a Canadian company, although the size of the market limits it as a percentage of our business. In Canada, we will always have a very steady business, and a lot of people are very supportive of the brand. Some people from Toronto hate the brand though. The Globe and Mail comes to mind. I’ve been here for four years, and never had one good article from the Globe and Mail.”

Chen said that in the last nine months, BlackBerry has been hiring many people in Asia-Pacific.

“We see a lot of opportunity there,” he said. “For example, we are going into Indonesia in three different ways: with OEM partners; with BBM [service] in consumer, and we are now starting to work with the SIs that provide mobility security solutions to the government.”

Marty Beard, BlackBerry’s Chief Operating Officer, remarked how BlackBerry has been able to pivot the brand away from the declining hardware business.

“When we had our first security summit four years ago, the questions were almost exclusively about devices,” he said. “Today there was one question which tangentially referenced it. It’s amazing because BlackBerry had such a strong brand as a device manufacturer. It’s possible that the partners we have licensed to make devices could lead to there being more BlackBerry branded devices in the future, and we are pushing very hard to sell them. But when we got out of the manufacturing, inventory and selling of devices ourselves, our balance sheet went up.”

The BlackBerry brand remains a major positive, Beard said.

“It is still one of the most recognizable brands in the world — even if it has been beat up a bit,” he said. “It’s like a political campaign. If you keep saying the same thing over and over, eventually the market will get it — if you get the results. So far, we have done all that, but there is still a long way to go.”

Beard said that the strategic objective here is to associate the BlackBerry brand with the broad security stack.

“We want BlackBerry to be recognized as an essential part of the enterprise stack necessary to secure business – in the same way Oracle is associated with databases and Salesforce is with CRM. That kind of association is the goal, and we believe that it is what is needed. It still has a long way to go, however.”

Ultimately, Beard said that they want the BlackBerry Secure branding to be the equivalent of the successful Intel Inside branding that company began in the 1990s.

“We can’t just say it ourselves though,” he acknowledged. We want to have Gartner and IDC saying it.”

BlackBerry enjoys competitive advantages in the EMM [Enterprise Mobility Management] space, said Adam Enterkin, who runs Americas Enterprise Sales at BlackBerry.

“EMM has evolved very slowly because the enterprise chose EMM solutions for different use cases — BYOD here, access to certain elements there,” Enterkin said. “That turned into the creation of different siloed technologies. Our [2015] Good Technology acquisition and integration created a single platform that enables any mobile strategy. That’s a major differentiator no other EMM provider has. It has made a difference how we compete in the market for large customers, because they are tired of managing different technologies for different use cases.”

As an example, Enterkin referred to large global banks, who are quite likely to have a BYOD strategy, a lockdown strategy for regulated users, and a separate tablet strategy for their executives.

“That could mean managing three strategies across 40 countries,” he said. “Consolidating THAT into a single platform really resonates with larger organizations.”

The Good acquisition was seen by analysts at the time as a sound one, providing BlackBerry could execute it successfully, and Chen said the record since indicated that they have.

“It was a very necessary thing to do to show commitment to the EMM software market,” Chen stated. “It has been more work integrating these two together than we originally expected, but we would do it again. At the time, we were struggling to get on our feet, and Good was struggling themselves. We were two sinking animals trying to help each other. We got it done and are now in good shape.”

“Good really helped us grow around the apps focus — messaging, voice and text — which had not been our strength,” Beard said.

Still, Chen emphasized that BlackBerry’s goal isn’t to become known simply as a strong EMM provider.

“EMM is a lousy market,” he said. “We are in endpoint management and the IoT world.”

Chen said that the Internet of Things will drive BlackBerry growth — but that this is still more of a mid-term factor.

“I think that cybersecurity services will grow the fastest in the immediate term,” he said. “IoT appliances will be the next wave of growth – in the next 3-5 years.”

Beard emphasized how BlackBerry’s EMM and IoT strategies are highly complementary.

“EMM expands the embedded market, and those two things are complementing each other,” he said. “We are talking about embedded more in that way.”

John Wall, the SVP and GM of BlackBerry QNX, BlackBerry’s OS for the embedded market, emphasized that BlackBerry is already in this market broadly, in devices ranging from toasters and washing machines to fleet company vehicles.

“With autonomous cars, we are not building the brain, like Google or Uber,” he said. “We build the platform that they run on. So both Google and Uber are our customers.”

Wall said they expect the autonomous vehicle market to show strength where there is a direct commercial application.

“The first autonomous vehicles on the road will be trucks, and airport shuttles — because there are financial incentives to do that,” he said. “Private cars will be the last, because the motive is safety, not financials.”

All of these changes have meant massive transition for the company. Chen stressed.

“We shifted from a B2C model to a B2B model,” he said. “That’s a humungous shift. We shifted from a telco channel to going to enterprises. That’s another major shift.” Chen made the transition to a much broader channel strategy the theme of his opening keynote address at the conference.

“In doing all this, the major difficulty, has been with our own infrastructure, the people,” he said. “We shifted compensation philosophies, hiring process, all the metrics of the company, even the narrative. It was difficult. We lost some very good people. Every time you lose good people committed to the company, it’s painful. It was the right thing to happen, but it still hurts.”

[Corbu]

https://www.itworldcanada.com/articl...ckberry/398771
From mobile devices to blockchain and securing everything: Welcome to the new BlackBerry

[masterful]

many thanks for your input Morgan8!!

[masterful]

https://www.itworldcanada.com/articl...ckberry/398771
From mobile devices to blockchain and securing everything: Welcome to the new BlackBerry

That is big if they executed it right regarding blockchain

[Corbu]

kellyweng88 and rarsen like this.

[Corbu]

IP news...
BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader
November 15, 2017 16:05 ET

BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov. 15, 2017) - BlackBerry Ltd (NYSE:BB)(TSX:BB) announced today that it has entered into a strategic licensing agreement with Teletry, an independent operating company with expertise in building relationships between patent holders and licensees in the wireless technology industry.

As part of the arrangement between Teletry and BlackBerry, Teletry will have the right to sublicense a broad range of BlackBerry patents to a majority of global smartphone manufacturers. BlackBerry will retain ownership of approximately 40,000 patents and applications and operate its own licensing program outside of Teletry's sublicensing rights.

Blackberry chose Kasim Alfalahi and his team at Teletry because of their expertise and track record in licensing important portfolios through long-term relationships.

"We are pleased to be working with one of the pioneers of the modern smartphone who created one of the most valuable patent portfolios in the industry," said Kasim Alfalahi on behalf of Teletry. "Through our new licensing program, Teletry looks forward to working with global smartphone manufacturers to license these innovative technology assets."

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

---

http://marconigroup.com/staff/kasim-alfalahi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kasim-alfalahi-0bb26b5

[Corbu]

BlackBerry: Avoiding Death By Autonomous Car
Rob Enderle

I’m at the annual BlackBerry Security Summit this week. The session I was most interested in was on Security and Autonomous cars. This is because these cars will likely be the very first wave of truly autonomous robots we will have around us and as a bit Terminator fan, I’m a tad worried about any proliferation of autonomous robots that could potentially decide I’m a speedbump. This could too easily happen if these coming robotic platforms aren’t secured. Whether it is a hostile government, terrorist group, or just a bunch of kids with more skills than sense the chance these things will become hostile is very high unless they are properly secured. BlackBerry is focused on fixing that problem which, for me, means they certainly have my attention in addition to my support for this critical effort.

Defining The Problem

It starts with the supply chain because if an unsecure component and there are millions of lines of code and increasing numbers of smart computing devices and sensors in these cars. BlackBerry proposes using a Root of Trust approach to assure each component is secure and that there are secure keys and certificates in each component as well as an ongoing set of diagnostics looking for and eliminating any rogue elements.

You need a defense in depth which means you need a strong application of existing security knowledge and relevant toolsets, not only do the applications that go into the car need to be secured but so does the hardware, Operating system, and the elements that make up the core stack of features.

Because the car will need to be updated it can’t be isolated but if a hostile agent gets into the car it can then take control of it. This suggests you isolate the safety critical systems from the non-safety oriented systems, this way if the user accidentally installs a non-secure app in the entertainment part of the car, it doesn’t compromise the operation of the car. Being killed by the latest Tayler Swift song should only be a concern for the poor saps who date her, I shouldn’t have to worry about that. This means the use of hypervisors, secure gateways, and lots of secure encryption and authentication to assure that no one, not even Tayler Swift, turns your car into a candidate for Death Race (insert current year here).

One of the big requirements is ongoing monitoring and remediation along with inter manufacturer sharing of common Cyber threats. Effectively a what you have in an OEM security network like what PC Security companies set up between their customers so that an attack on one car can be captured and used to immunize other potential vulnerable cars regardless of who makes them. This is also used for software bugs and updates delivered via secure Over the Air (OTA) software updates. As it is with enterprise systems the whole mess is overseen, BlackBerry proposes, with a unified endpoint management tool (as you would expect, BlackBerry sells one of the most advanced endpoint management tools.

Finally, the OEMs need to have a security and safety culture regarding Cybersecurity. This is so security isn’t an afterthought like it was initially with both PCs and Smartphones, it is imbedded in the process and no software or hardware is released that has known critical security faults.

This segment ended with the list of 20 individual products BlackBerry has created to address these exposures.

Project Halo

This was a particularly interesting tool so I figured I’d give it special coverage. One of the biggest problems with assuring the supply chain with cars is with the software. With millions of lines of code in various forms there isn’t, or wasn’t a good way to analyze the code and assure it hasn’t been compromised or have an unacceptable security exposure. Project Halo is a BlackBerry service that uses customized scanning (both BlackBerry best practices and custom OEM operations) to assure the software meets the security and safety requirements of the OEM and so that potential security problems are eliminated prior to manufacturing and delivering of the car.

Wrapping Up: Creating the Secure Car

Here what is scary about this segment. It is clear to me that most of the car OEMs out there are rushing at warp speed to create cars that drive themselves. Many of these cars aren’t even going to have optional controls so your life will be in the hands of those that build them. It would quickly seem to me that unless we want to have a far more exciting ride or be held accountable for giving someone else an excessively exciting ride, scare, or early dirt nap we likely should be, when we buy our first autonomous driven car, we likely should be looking for a BlackBerry logo on the paperwork otherwise our shortened lives will be more exciting than we expect or want to worry that, should you hear the Taylor Swift song, “Look What You Made Me Do” that it is your car’s not so subtle way of telling you it had suddenly gone Terminator on you and that suddenly you were John Conner.

[anon(9100201)]

IP news...
BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader
November 15, 2017 16:05 ET

BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov. 15, 2017) - BlackBerry Ltd (NYSE:BB)(TSX:BB) announced today that it has entered into a strategic licensing agreement with Teletry, an independent operating company with expertise in building relationships between patent holders and licensees in the wireless technology industry.

As part of the arrangement between Teletry and BlackBerry, Teletry will have the right to sublicense a broad range of BlackBerry patents to a majority of global smartphone manufacturers. BlackBerry will retain ownership of approximately 40,000 patents and applications and operate its own licensing program outside of Teletry's sublicensing rights.

Blackberry chose Kasim Alfalahi and his team at Teletry because of their expertise and track record in licensing important portfolios through long-term relationships.

"We are pleased to be working with one of the pioneers of the modern smartphone who created one of the most valuable patent portfolios in the industry," said Kasim Alfalahi on behalf of Teletry. "Through our new licensing program, Teletry looks forward to working with global smartphone manufacturers to license these innovative technology assets."

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

---

http://marconigroup.com/staff/kasim-alfalahi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kasim-alfalahi-0bb26b5

So where are the news from the Avaya and the Nokia lawsuits?

Posted via CB10

[FeitaInc]

IP news...
BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader
November 15, 2017 16:05 ET

BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov. 15, 2017) - BlackBerry Ltd (NYSE:BB)(TSX:BB) announced today that it has entered into a strategic licensing agreement with Teletry, an independent operating company with expertise in building relationships between patent holders and licensees in the wireless technology industry.

As part of the arrangement between Teletry and BlackBerry, Teletry will have the right to sublicense a broad range of BlackBerry patents to a majority of global smartphone manufacturers. BlackBerry will retain ownership of approximately 40,000 patents and applications and operate its own licensing program outside of Teletry's sublicensing rights.

Blackberry chose Kasim Alfalahi and his team at Teletry because of their expertise and track record in licensing important portfolios through long-term relationships.

"We are pleased to be working with one of the pioneers of the modern smartphone who created one of the most valuable patent portfolios in the industry," said Kasim Alfalahi on behalf of Teletry. "Through our new licensing program, Teletry looks forward to working with global smartphone manufacturers to license these innovative technology assets."

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

---

http://marconigroup.com/staff/kasim-alfalahi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kasim-alfalahi-0bb26b5

Big shock the IP guy left. /sarcasm

[W Hoa]

BlackBerry Announces New Patent Licensing Partnership with Industry Leader

You can cite the article without having to post it in its entirety. Just highlight a part of it and it will automatically become a quote. Cheers

[bbjdog]

“That was investors’ main worry — whether we would survive,” he said. “Some of them bet on us just because we were a cheap enough stock. I think that question is off the table now. The company is in very reasonable shape. We have a good ability to manage our balance sheets, and have lots of assets. I said previously that we would grow 10 to 15 per cent this year, and I still maintain we will do that. Now, to move the stock price to the next level, it’s all about continued revenue growth. I have no illusions about that.”

I never invested in Blackberry because of stock price and I also believe that many here never did so.

Thanks Corbu for this post, It's indeed a must read!!!

Cheers mate

[bbjdog]

Some people from Toronto hate the brand though. The Globe and Mail comes to mind. I’ve been here for four years, and never had one good article from the Globe and Mail.”

Worth a re-post on this thread!!!

[Corbu]

Worth a re-post on this thread!!!

You bet!

PS: Was your comment intended for me, W Hoa? Not sure I get it. Thanks, mate!

[bbjdog]

You bet!

PS: Was your comment intended for me, W Hoa? Not sure I get it. Thanks, mate!

Sorry for the confusion mate, it wasn't intended for any one. Just totally agree with it. Some dinosaur reading material doesn't like BlackBerry. Lol

[Corbu]

Reuters on patent licensing deal
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-gm...-idUKKBN1DF272

[Corbu]

CEO of BlackBerry downplays enterprise mobility management - Modern Mobility

Over the past decade, as the consumerization of IT took hold, BlackBerry lost significant mindshare among IT professionals — many of whom were once devout users of the company’s smartphones. Now, they don’t think about BlackBerry when it comes to making technology purchasing decisions, said an infrastructure engineer for a financial firm in the Northeast.

“You’ve got to build that muscle memory,” said the engineer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his employer did not authorize him to talk to the media.

Chen also acknowledged this problem.

“Not too many people know about what we do too well,” he said.

[Corbu]

More Reuters
Budget airline backer Franke spends a bundle on jets | Reuters

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada’s BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO) (BB.N) announced the outsourcing of a significant part of its patent licensing efforts on Wednesday to a unit of the U.S.-based Marconi Group.

BlackBerry said the work of sub-licensing a broad range of its patents to global smartphone manufacturers will fall to Teletry.

Teletry is part of the Marconi Group, which launched earlier this year and says it specializes in patent licensing across a broad range of technologies and products.

BlackBerry said it would retain ownership of its roughly 40,000 patents - which span operating systems, networking infrastructure, automotive subsystems, cyber security and wireless communications - and operate its own licensing program outside of Teletry’s sub-licensing rights.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“They’re basically saying ‘I don’t want to build this internal team up at BlackBerry, I want to outsource it,” said Todd Coupland, an analyst at CIBC World Markets.

“It allows BlackBerry to focus on their core business, which is not patent licensing. I don’t have a problem with that,” Coupland said.

He added that BlackBerry should focus on winning more deals for its QNX operating system to be used in the automotive industry - a key potential source of future growth.

BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen had made monetizing the company’s intellectual property a key pillar of his plan to turn the company around after ceding the handset market it once dominated to rivals.

Chen said last month that BlackBerry had more than 80 people working on patent deals, although several senior members of the team have departed in recent months, including Mark Kokes, who left the company to take a job at health technology company NantWorks LLC, two sources have previously said..

Marconi’s leadership team includes Kasim Alfalahi, the former head of patent licensing at Ericsson (ERICb.ST), and Eric Reifschneider, who was previously general manager for Qualcomm Inc’s (QCOM.O) licensing efforts.

Such sub-licensing deals typically involve very little in terms of upfront payments, industry participants say, with the patent enforcers providing their expertise in exchange for a cut on any deals reached.

[W Hoa]

PS: Was your comment intended for me, W Hoa? Not sure I get it. Thanks, mate!

No, sorry for the confusion. Was showing how the previous two posters could condense their posts so as not to repeat the whole post of yours. Hope that makes sense.

[Corbu]

No, sorry for the confusion. Was showing how the previous two posters could condense their posts so as not to repeat the whole post of yours. Hope that makes sense.

Sure, man. We agree. And thanks for your great posts!

[Corbu]

For those who have not seen it yet:

[Corbu]

More background on Kasim Alfalahi:

Ericsson’s Alfalahi to leave CIPO role and head up new IoT licensing initiative - Blog - Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) - Maximising IP Value for Business
The 40 individuals who drive the global patent market named in the latest issue of IAM - Blog - Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) - Maximising IP Value for Business
The Marconi Group Formed to Create and Support New Patent Licensing Platforms | Business Wire
https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-re...atform-for-iot

[bbjdog]

No, sorry for the confusion. Was showing how the previous two posters could condense their posts so as not to repeat the whole post of yours. Hope that makes sense.

I believe it's the phone app that doesn't allow such a thing. Whole post or nothing. Cheers.

[farmwersteve]

Hey Corbu

thanks for all those great must read articles

I have one question about hardware though for anyone,

they really didn't mention Radar in any of the articles I read, does anyone think that segment is going to continue?

[DREXcb]

@farmersteve, Chen talks about it in this video (thanks to Corbu)



Posted via CB10