Speaking at the BlackBerry Experience event in London, BlackBerry’s managing director for Europe, Markus Mueller, told an audience of BlackBerry customers that the firm is “re-pivoting to the enterprise” with its strategy, building on the existing security and management capabilities in its BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES).
“First of all, we are recommitting to the enterprise, that’s what [CEO] John Chen said when he came on board in November. What he did when he joined BlackBerry is he told us to focus, and if you want to focus, you need to focus on the battles you can win”
He then went on to admit that trying to compete with Apple and Samsung in the consumer space probably was a step too far for the firm and a battle they just couldn’t win.
“If you look at the market and what we did with BlackBerry 10, how we approached the market, maybe that was a battle in the broad consumer space which we couldn’t have won in the first place.”
However, the firm is now “returning to its roots” and will “re-establish its leadership”, he said, with more features and broader enterprise support, such as opening its APIs to other mobile management vendors and the addition of Windows Phone support in BES 12. The Enterprise is a battle they can win.
A recurring theme in his address was security.
“Enterprise is our heritage, that’s what we come from, that’s where security matters, that’s where trust matters and that’s where we see our strengths.
So that’s one battle we can take and we think we can win this battle,”
Mueller said that BlackBerry’s strategy will comprise three parts: supporting enterprise mobility; enabling productivity; and in the future expanding into the Internet of Things through its QNX platform, which already underpins the BlackBerry 10 operating system in the firm’s smartphones.
A key target for BlackBerry is to focus on productivity and building devices and software for specific target groups.
“Whenever you build products, it’s always very good to know who you want to sell it to. The more specific the target group is, the better you can sell products to them,” he said
“So BlackBerry devices might not necessarily be a device for everybody but the target we have in mind is actually a type of person who is very busy, who has a busy personal life, leads a busy professional life – they are people who want to achieve things in life, they are very productive and we want to make devices to support that type of lifestyle.
“We want to make the best device and the best solutions which support that type of lifestyle and that type of person,” he said, adding, “We want to become the single trusted provider for enterprise mobility.”
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