Don’t write us off, says BlackBerry India chief

Will focus more on professionals and corporate end users

May 01, 2014 10:59 pm | Updated 10:59 pm IST - MUMBAI:

Having lost market share, BlackBerry is bouncing back by making a bouquet of service offerings. The next 12 months will be challenging as the company moves into services and software to regain its lost glory.

“Don’t write BlackBerry off. We are coming back strong. We will be back because here mobility is at a nascent stage and it will only go up. We are bouncing back with a wider offering of services and software,” Sunil Lalvani, Managing Director, BlackBerry India, told this correspondent.

As part of its changed strategy, BlackBerry will focus more on professionals and corporate end users. In devices, it will focus on mid-and high-end phones.

Its five-year deal with Foxconn will take care of the new devices while the management will focus more on services, software and new businesses to drive profitable growth.

BlackBerry said it would soon launch two new devices—Z3, a full touch screen five inches phone, and Q20, a BlackBerry Classic phone that will be manufactured and supplied by Foxconn. More phones above the price of Rs. 10,000 would be launched later.  

“We are not just a devices only company. Services and software that constituted 40 per cent of the company’s revenue has now moved up to 63 per cent and this trend will continue,” Mr Lalvani added.

“We are leveraging on our core strengths of security, device management and the private network we have developed worldwide.  Corporates want us to secure their data and in one year, we have sold 1,000 BlackBerry Enterprise Servers 10 (BES 10) in India and we have got positive signals for BES 12 that will be introduced by the end of this year,” he said.

For the convenience of corporate clients, BlackBerry is offering enterprise grade BBM (eBBM) that will enable secured instant messaging. eBBM will have a suite of offering that will be BBM protected.

To ensure that enterprise BBM is encrypted and secured, BlackBerry will charge a service fee from the users. This will be one of its revenue streams.

It is also planning to monetize its recent offering -BBM Channels.

“Future devices will be taken care of by our tie up with Foxconn. But services, software and QNX will drive the change henceforth,” Mr Lalvani said.

QNX software which helped in machine-to-machine communication would be progressively rolled out in India, Mr Lalvani said. It would have greater application in automobiles, healthcare and heavy engineering industry, he added.

BlackBerry India has already secured clients in heavy engineering, and is talking to many automobile companies for QNX. Ford India is already using QNX software instead of Microsoft’s Sync.

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