Everyone makes it sound like we’re getting out of the hardware business. It’s not true. Or not yet anyway!
Speaking at the BlackBerry Security Summit in New York today, BlackBerry CEO John Chen said he has an internal project to bring Android security up to the level of its BlackBerry 10 platform, which should bear fruit after the release of Android N.
Chen refused to give further details about the project, with the exception that it will coincide with Android N (Nougat).
“I’m not going to tell you the codename because you’ll keep asking me about it,”
“It will coincide with N. We expect N to be a step up from M, and we need to add our code to it.  Expect release in a time frame some “six to eight months out,”
He also hinted at a future based around brand and technology licensing.
“We have a tremendous amount of technology. We can stay in the handset business by not making every handset,” he told journalists at a Q&A during the Security Summit.
“Maybe even the name,”
“I could stay in the handset business where I provide a strong secure entry point, and I’m providing my customers continuity and a soft landing. When I said we’re not going to produce Classic any more, everyone made it sound like we’re getting out of the hardware business. It’s not true. Or not yet anyway.”
In the most recent company reorganization, Chen reminded the audience, he did not favour the name “devices.”
“When I segmented out the device business, I didn’t call it a device business,” he said.”
“It’s a mobile solutions business. So whether it’s crypto or antenna, we are willing to license it. There will be a component in mobile that becomes revenue. As long as hardware makes money I don’t care whether it’s 30 per cent, or 40 per cent, or 50 per cent of our business. Making money with our handset business is our Number 1 priority.”
Chen reiterated that he just can’t simply walk away from his customers, many who are Government agencies worldwide,
“The real reason … is customers,”
“We still have a lot of BlackBerry customers. We have government agencies around the world, especially in the USA and Canada. You can’t just walk away from those customers saying ‘I don’t want to make them anymore,’ because these are the same people I have to go back and try and sell software to.”
As this was a Security Summit, Chen took a dig at Apple,
“They have an attitude that it doesn’t matter how much somebody harms society, they’re not going to help,”
“Like anybody, Apple should have a basic civic responsibility … to help out. The guidelines we’ve adopted require legal assets, a subpoena for certain data. Encryption tech has now gotten to the point where nobody has the ability to get the content. “It’s more an attitudinal thing: my neighbor is in danger.”
Chen however also warned law enforcement policy makers that mandatory backdoors really weren’t a good idea.
“There’s proposed legislation in the US and I’m sure it will come to the EU, that every vendor needs to provide some form of a back door. That is not going to fly at all. It just isn’t,”
