Dubai: BlackBerry said that it is focusing a lot on the software and services side with the recent acquisitions of Good Technology and WatchDox.
Nader Henein, regional director for product security and advisory division at BlackBerry Middle East and Africa, said that the company has been strong in the enterprise business.
“The acquisitions will boost its ability to offer a secure mobility platform on any operating systems. Today, we also have the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 12 that can even manage Android, Windows or Apple tablets and smartphones,” he said.
He said that software is a significant part of its business and this is likely to continue to grow. “Our aim is to provide customers with greater mobile enterprise productivity, including seamless integration of capabilities across multiple applications,” he said.
The company expects $500 million (Dh1.83 billion) revenues from the software side in 2016.
Henein said that each of its businesses — smartphone, enterprise, software services and IoT — stand on its own two feet.
“If the device business is not doing well, it does not affect the other businesses. Our services business is very strong. We acquired these companies and still have close to $2.5 billion in the bank. There is no shortage of cash and no shortage of good ideas,” he said.
It is “difficult to judge” how Blackberry is going to look 10 years from now or two years from now.
“That is the advantage a technology company and not like a banking industry. In the banking industry, they still will be depositing and withdrawing cash even after 10 years from now,” he said.
