BlackBerry Aims To Split Its Activities Into Two Independent Entities

The former pioneer of BlackBerry smartphones, converted to embedded and cybersecurity, announces its intention to split into two autonomous entities to revitalize its attractiveness to shareholders.

Even if the name BlackBerry no longer means much to younger generations, the company dominated the mobility and smartphone market in the 90s and 2000s. A pioneer in mobile and secure email, the company that had built its success on these ultra-productive keyboard phones failed to reinvent itself for the touchscreen era and was swept away by the iPhone and Android waves. It has been more than a decade since, under the leadership of a new CEO, John Chen, the company reinvented itself to establish itself as an expert in cybersecurity (notably after the acquisition of Good Technology and even more so Cylance) and of IoT (with its QNX embedded solutions). A partner that CIOs and CISOs now know well, even if the company has faded a little from the collective memory.

The pioneer of mobile email and smartphones has just announced its intention to split into two separate entities to promote its activities to investors better. This decision follows a strategic audit launched last May under the pompous code “Project Imperium” to optimize the Canadian company’s portfolio of products and services. The idea is also logical as these activities are already well-defined within the group.

BlackBerry is the unsung king of embedded.

BlackBerry’s IoT business is primarily based on QNX technologies used in more than 215 million vehicles and in other verticals such as aerospace, healthcare, industrial, or transportation. BlackBerry offers IoT solutions that help secure, manage, and optimize connected devices and the data they generate. Among these solutions, we can cite the entire QNX embedded development universe (RTOS, Hypervisor, Certicom, etc.), the QNX Adas platform (intelligent vehicle cockpit and autonomous driving), BlackBerry IVY (a cloud platform that facilitates the development of applications for smart vehicles), or BlackBerry Radar (an asset tracking solution for the transportation sector).

BlackBerry, a historic player in cybersecurity

BlackBerry has always been a player in cybersecurity. Its email security infrastructure initially made the brand strong, much more than the mobile terminals that used it. BlackBerry’s current cybersecurity business, centered on Cylance technologies, leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to prevent and detect cyber threats to data, devices, and networks. BlackBerry offers a comprehensive suite of cybersecurity products that cover endpoint protection (UEM), detection and response (EDR), mobile defense (MTD), behavioral analytics (UEBA), or crisis management needs. Among these products, we can cite BlackBerry UEM, CylanceEDGE, CylanceENDPOINT, CylanceGUARD, CylanceINTELLIGENCE, or even BlackBerry AtHoc.

Towards an IPO and resale?

By splitting into two independently operating entities, BlackBerry hopes to draw more investor attention to its business’s growth potential and profitability.

The main goal is to IPO the IoT business in the first half of the next fiscal year. This operation could value this activity at more than $2 billion.

As for the cybersecurity activity, if it must officially remain within the group, we cannot ignore the persistent rumors since this summer of a potential takeover of BlackBerry by Veritas, which would be very interested in the cybersecurity portfolio of the former security pioneer mobile, in particular, to strengthen its presence on the public market.

It is not absurd to think that the announcement of this separation aims to facilitate the resale of the cybersecurity portfolio to Veritas or another player looking for complete cyber solutions.

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