BlackBerry

BlackBerry on Thursday showcased a suite of security products that safeguard everything from medical devices to Hollywood movie scripts, though its CEO acknowledged that his effort to transform the company remains a work in progress.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company, whose smartphone market share has dwindled, is attempting to morph into a more software-focused entity.

BlackBerry may be looking to Google's Android operating system to power an upcoming smartphone.

The struggling smartphone maker could run Android on an "upcoming slider device" that will likely be released this fall, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing sources "familiar with the matter." The smartphone would, according to Reuters, combine a touchscreen with a slide-out keyboard that people could use if they prefer.

BlackBerry Ltd said on Tuesday it is launching a new certificate service that will help bring the security level it offers on smartphones to a slew of devices from cars to smart meters.

Certicom, a subsidiary of BlackBerry and an industry pioneer in elliptic curve cryptography, announced a new offering that it contends will secure millions of devices, expected to be part of the growing Internet of Things (IoT) sphere.

BlackBerry is returning to the tablet market -- this time with the help of Samsung Electronics, IBM and Secusmart, the German encryption specialist BlackBerry bought last year.

This is not the PlayBook 2 that BlackBerry was rumored to be working on last year, but the SecuTablet, developed by Secusmart and IBM for a German government department.

Blackberry said today it will bring its security, productivity, and communications tools to iOS, Android, and Windows.

In an announcement about the Blackberry Experience Suite made at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Canada’s Blackberry said “we want to empower all mobile professionals in order to supercharge their productivity and allow them to work across all their devices in an effortless and secure way.”

The company said the suite of tools will be released later this year.

BlackBerry announced yesterday that it has appointed David Kleidermacher as its new Chief Security Officer. Kleidermacher is the former CTO of Green Hills Software, a company that calls itself "the largest independent embedded software provider." Kleidermacher joined Green Hills Software in 1991 as a systems software engineer, according to his LinkedIn profile.

BlackBerry is taking the same approach with its Internet of things platform, launched Wednesday at International CES, as it is with its smartphone business: Aim at its core markets.

In IoT, the struggling mobile vendor has found an emerging area of technology where it may have the right combination of strengths. The company signaled as much last May when it announced Project Ion, a future cloud-based service it said would make it easier for enterprises to develop IoT software.

BlackBerry has unveiled its new mobile-device management and security platform and struck wide-ranging partnerships to bolster its capabilities, sending its shares more than 6 per cent higher.

BlackBerry said it would team up with Samsung to provide a "highly secure mobility solution" for Samsung's Android phones. The system couples the Canadian company's device management capability with the KNOX software embedded on Samsung's Galaxy phones and tablets, and will be available in early 2015, the companies said.

BlackBerry's new square-faced, enterprise-targeted Passport smartphone hit 200,000 preorders within two days of their debut online on Sept. 24, selling out the devices for now and giving the company some pleasant news after what has been several years of disappointments.

The 200,000 preorders were announced by John Chen, BlackBerry's CEO, during a first-quarter 2015 earnings call with analysts on Sept. 26 and have been confirmed by BlackBerry.

Yes on top of the Blackberry Passport launch we have a new scandal.   Apparently if you put your new iPhone 6 in your back pocket and sit down it bends.  Granted I think anyone who puts their phone in their back pocket is an idiot but this showcases some of the design tradeoffs that Apple makes that Blackberry reverses.  For Apple design, weight, and thin are high priorities which tends to result in phones that are very attractive but also relatively fragile.  For Blackberry battery life, security, and practicality dominate and that makes for a very different phone and experience.