BlackBerry today announced that its global partner and channel ecosystem continues to show strong momentum. The expanding network offers significant growth opportunities for BlackBerry’s channel partners as they help businesses embrace BlackBerry Spark, its new Enterprise of Things (EoT) platform designed and built for ultra-secure hyperconnectivity from the kernel to the edge.
At the company’s Security Summit in London, BlackBerry announced a healthy – and growing partner ecosystem, including:
- Enterprise ISV partners grew by 25 percent in the last year;
- 140 new channel partners joined the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program in the last quarter;
- A global network of value-added integrators for the automotive and embedded software markets;
- Connected AWS IoT services to the BlackBerry Spark platform.
Through these partnerships, BlackBerry customers now have access to more applications, secured software solutions, and cloud services than ever before.
“As companies race to lead in the EoT, the winners will be those that can interoperate with the widest array of partners and provide end to end secure solutions,” said Mark Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer, BlackBerry.
“As more partners choose to work with BlackBerry, our global ecosystem grows to offer our customers cutting-edge solutions to complex business problems.”
The new BlackBerry Spark EoT platform announced separately today comes complete with “snap-in” hooks to add any of the leading public and private cloud and other computing services. AWS is the newest cloud partner for BlackBerry Spark.
“Enterprises already look to AWS to help them unlock value from data gathered by IoT devices. With BlackBerry Spark running on AWS IoT, they now have the ability to connect all aspects of their business to new and existing workflows,” said Dirk Didascalou, VP of IoT, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“It enables our mutual customers to quickly integrate any ‘thing’, from a consumer device, to a simple sensor, to complex industrial equipment, while applying the appropriate enterprise policies protecting their data, brand, and people.”
Automotive and Embedded Software IntegrationÂ
The company has also signed four new channel partners to its BlackBerry QNX Distributor & Value-Added Integrator (VAI) programs, adding to its growing worldwide network of 40 channel partners trained on BlackBerry QNX technologies. The VAI program allows partners to deliver integration services and build upon BlackBerry QNX’s embedded software platforms to design and develop secure, mission-critical solutions – ultimately accelerating product time-to-market. Among the new partners joining the BlackBerry QNX Distributor & VAI programs are:
- Hitachi ULSI – Experts in hardware and software design and development, Hitachi ULSI will leverage the wider Hitachi group’s embedded solutions business with a view to supporting Japanese and other customers with BlackBerry QNX-based platform products across the industrial control, automotive, medical and related application spaces where safety, security and reliability are of paramount importance.
- Ocube, Inc – With deep domain knowledge in embedded design and development, Ocube, Inc. will provide value-added engineering services around the BlackBerry QNX platform to key automotive and industrial customers in Korea.
- Sasken Technologies – A leading product engineering and digital transformation solutions provider, Sasken will provide global support for the BlackBerry QNX product platform across the industrial, transportation, medical and IoT markets by providing skilled integration, testing, qualification and certification services.
- Tritech – Specialist suppliers of embedded and IoT products and solutions, Tritech will distribute the safety-certified and secure BlackBerry QNX product platform for transportation and general embedded applications across Sweden and Finland.
BlackBerry Secure Application MarketplaceÂ
The BlackBerry Marketplace helps power many of the world’s leading organizations across a range of industries. Categories of solutions on the Marketplace include Business Intelligence, Advanced Analytics, Mobile Threat Protection, Authentication, Secure Messaging, Video Conferencing, Business Process Management and more.
Among the ISV partners with new solutions available on the Marketplace are: 1E, AGAT Software, Apply Mobile, Aspen Grove Solutions, Awingu, Blue Cedar, Branchfire, Check Point Software Technologies, Code Red, Devacon, iManage, iRise, Kryptowire, Micro Focus, OpsGenie, Pradeo Security, Qlik, Signafire, Swyft, Symantec, Tableau Software, VoxSmart, WiActs and Xenium Solutions.
Channel StrengthÂ
The reach of BlackBerry’s global ecosystem of enterprise software partners also continues to go from strength to strength with the company having signed more than 140 new partners in the last quarter, many specializing in areas such as cloud computing, data security and applications as opposed to traditional mobile devices.
Numerous enhancements have also been made to the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program including the new SHIELD Advisor, Crisis Communications, Managed Hosted Services and Workspaces specializations, all of which aim to increase the value of BlackBerry partners by elevating their capabilities and bringing more value to our shared customers. The response to the newly released BlackBerry Applications Integration Professional competency has been equally impressive, with 28 partners having gained the accreditation. This enables deep knowledge and capabilities with the BlackBerry Development Platform, BlackBerry Dynamics, BlackBerry Dynamics SDK, applications consultation and integration. With this accreditation, partners are empowered to bring rich, secure workflow solutions to our joint customers, in addition to our ISV partner solutions available on the BlackBerry Marketplace.
The following quotes are from partners who have recently joined the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program including Akira Technologies, EBF GmbH, Entisys360, IntelliPeak Solutions, Inc., Novalink, samtec GmbH, StarLink and Taurus Clearer Communication Ltd.
