Movirt-who? BlackBerry gobbles maker of multi-line smartphone tech In a bid to firm up its pitch to enterprise customers, troubled mobile biz BlackBerry has bought Movirtu, a maker of tech that allows a smartphone to have multiple phone numbers active at the same time using a single SIM. Movirtu says its Virtual SIM Platform is based on "standard network technology," rather than VoIP, and it …
I'm sure there are a lot of companies out there who would pick BlackBerry over Apple on the security front. BlackBerry is proven secure, Apple has proven the complete opposite, and an earlier article also proved (again) Android's free-for-all security permissions are security concerns as well.
These purchases are strengthening BlackBerry. Read the article, they made $966 million revenue last year, on top of the $3.1 billion they have to spend. John Chen is doing a fantastic job at the helm of BlackBerry also. They won't topple Android or iPhone in terms of being the phone of the regular consumer, but they still have an important role in Business.
You didn't contradict what I said, though perhaps I might have been more clear. I said not a lot of PEOPLE would choose Blackberry, thus this won't help for BYOD. Companies that force phones on their employees might choose Blackberry, and this would be useful for that to some extent, but BYOD is gaining strength and the number of companies providing phones for employees are shrinking.
I think Blackberry will be bought out or go under, because they can't stay viable in fourth place in what is essentially a two horse race, and the CEO is too stubborn to realize this and try to market Blackberry's software/security layer to an Android vendor to help differentiate them from the Android herd. Samsung is already going their own way with Knox, but if Lenovo or LG wanted to rise above the rest in the corporate market, integrating Blackberry's technology (and more importantly, their reputation) would be the fastest way there.
@ DougS
You really need to read before you post, the article said blackberry will support this "on all major smartphone operating systems." also read this http://uk.blackberry.com/business/products-services/bes-10.html?lid=uk:bb:software:businesssoftware:bes-10&lpos=uk:bb:software
BES10 one of if not the most secure enterprise system to manage multiple mobile systems.....
@DougS You keep thinking about companies based on consumer markets, where BlackBerry is in 4th place. But they are better in the business world and I'm fairly sure they're not 4th place there. And it's all well and good saying they will drop out of handsets, I don't believe they will. I believe they will become a niche handset maker because they make phones with keyboard that do email extremely well. The only phone/OS that can even get close to the email experience of a BlackBerry is, surprisingly, Windows.
And as @Big_Ted has pointed out, BES10 is probably the most secure system you can get for mobiles systems. With the assets they have, the company aquiring them will want to have more money than the £3.1billion BlackBerry has.
According to the CBC article on this which was published earlier today, the Movirtu system works on Android, Apple iOS, and Windows Phone, with Blackberry to be added next year. This looks like another step in getting Blackberry software and services on other platforms. They may be on the prowl for other similar acquisitions.
I would not be surprised if Blackberry eventually gets out of the handset business altogether. The volume handset market is going to be one where hardware vendors cut each others' throats over razor thin margins, with perhaps a few niche players (e.g. Apple) being able to charge premiums for minority market share luxury brands.
If Blackberry can focus on offering services which run on other company's handsets they don't have to offer a special "enterprise" handset of their own. They can instead let customers choose their own handsets and support those with additional enterprise security and management features.
I think the phone market is going to end up like the PC desktop market - one commodity OS with 85 - 90% of the market, a second brand with 10-12%, and everything else scrabbling over the remainder. With phones though, it will be Linux (Android), Apple, and then Microsoft in that order rather than the other way around as it is on PCs.
Given the realities of that, Blackberry getting out of the handset market is probably the only realistic strategy. They won't announce that in advance though, because they won't want to "Elop" their own product line while it's still selling.
You are mostly right but the plan is not to quit handsets, they have an excellent OS and well designed phones, and they will keep selling them as long as they can. In their current structure, they only need to sell 10 million phones per year to make a profit. Qwerty phones address a niche market, and are designed for Enterprise users... there will always be a market for keyboard phones like the new Passport, which focus on productivity and security.
BlackBerry and others like Samsung are all aware of the coming commoditization of the handset market and you rightly observe that all the moves the new CEO made since he took over is to turn BlackBerry into an Enterprise software and service provider.
Isn't 2 numbers one sim (no relation to 2 girls one cup) a network feature? Orange used to offer 'line 2' as a facility some time ago (at least 10 years ago) but withdrew it because of continued low uptake. I know because I had it (business line 1 and personal line 2).
(a) I don't think there's a big demand for this
and
(b) if there is, then the networks would be able to offer it...
So what exactly is it, that BB have bought?
It's true that an operator can assign multiple numbers (MSISDN) to a SIM card for incoming calls but not outgoing - something that Movirtu seem to have solved. In the world of BOYD, how do you manage work and personal numbers? It looks like this allows the enterprise to provide a number that has separate billing for phone/data/text and doesn't go walkies when the employee leaves.
That's a neat trick, as the BOYD now really has two completely separate identities.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
