BlackBerry may be losing favor with some U.S. government agencies, but the company is drumming up new business abroad.
Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) this week approved a deal under which the country’s government will purchase 5,000 BlackBerry Z10s for employee use. The devices are all to be outfitted with Secusmart technology, which will bring to them additional security measures like data encryption and secure voice and text messaging.
The deal is a nice win for BlackBerry, which over the past few years has lost its footing in the enterprise market it long dominated. Now, with its new BlackBerry 10 operating system and devices like the Z10, the company is doing all it can to retain those bread-and-butter enterprise customers. This contract with the German government is an encouraging sign that some of those efforts are paying off.
But it’s a tough battle. As I’ve written here before, BlackBerry’s fight for the enterprise space is beginning to look a lot like the one already lost in the consumer space.
With the consumerization of IT in full swing and more companies offering “Bring Your Own Device†plans to their employees, BlackBerry is losing its grip on enterprise. By losing the smartphone battle in the consumer market, the company has put its position in enterprise market at risk. Now it must struggle for relevance in a broader market in which the lines between consumer and enterprise are blurring. And that’s a tough place to be for a company that has only recently fielded a competitive smartphone OS.
No comments:
Post a Comment