Last Tuesday we reported how BlackBerry was reportedly planning to move the BBM servers to Indonesia following a partnership with media group PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek) in June.
According to dailysocial, BBM CEO Matthew Talbot was quoted as saying that the company planned to gradually move its servers in Canada to Indonesia, with the process to be completed in 2017.
Talbot said at the time,
“Experience is very important,” “We don’t want to access the data through transatlantic cable. We would like to give a better messaging experience.”
In what is becoming a repetitive task, BlackBerry COO Marty Beard, has taken to the Inside BlackBerry blog to “clear up” the facts.
Beard initially clarifies that BlackBerry still owns 100% of BBM,
“First of all, let’s be clear. BlackBerry owns 100% of BBM. We have merely licensed the rights to the Android, iOS and Windows Phone versions of BBM to a newly formed subsidiary of Emtek named Creative Media (www.BBMTek.com). BlackBerry maintains direct control over the BBOS and BlackBerry 10 versions of BBM, as well as BBM Enterprise (formerly BBM Protected).”
Beard then contradicts the Head of Creative Media about BBM Servers moving to Indonesia,
“Businesses running BBM Enterprise for the ultimate in high-security mobile communications can remain confident that there will be no changes, disruptions or degradation of their service. It is also important to note that there are NO plans to move any BBM infrastructure, including BBM servers located in Canada and the U.S., to Indonesia, contrary to what the Head of Creative Media apparently communicated to the media.”
What is clear here is that BlackBerry still have a huge media “miscommunication” problem and it is interesting that it is not BBM CEO Matthew Talbot “clearing things up” but Beard. This is not a situation of a company being misquoted but a more serious problem of one executive saying one thing and another executive attempting to correct them.
The fact that it has taken almost a week for this to be “clarified” is not good and the fact that BlackBerry continue to have this problem highlights more than ever the need for the company to hire a good public relations company.
