BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) owns the most secure networks worldwide, making its enterprise business a crown jewel that could attract investors, according to Peter Misek, managing director at Jefferies, an investment banking firm.
In an interview with CBC on the program Lang & O’Leary Exchange, Misek said that the networks of the Canadian smartphone manufacturer are among the few that cannot be hacked by the United States National Security Agency (NSA). He said, “The crown jewel of all crown jewels is the services business.”
Misek is convinced that the NSA failed to hack the custom cryptography of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) based on his conversations with the agency, despite reports it was able to circumvent the security measures to protect data on Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone devices.
BlackBerry networks
According to him, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) operates one of the best networks worldwide of servers and ultra secured compressed data, which are extremely valuable.
“We think it’s NSA-proof. It’s probably one of the only networks that is proof, and the security is so good, it takes four million years on brute compute force to hack it, so we think it’s a very valuable asset,” said Misek.
During the interview, Misek also commented that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s acquisition of the Devices & Services business of Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) is necessary for the company. According to him, Microsoft had no choice—it had to buy the business because it would be “game over” for the Windows franchise if it had no presence in the smartphone market.
According to him, it is also important for Microsoft to have a role in enterprise IT and it is “absolutely critical” to the future of the company.
Misek believes that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) and SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) (FRA:SAP) are among the big players in the industry that might be interested in acquiring the enterprise business of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB).
He also said that Asian manufacturers such as Lenovo Group Limited (OTCMKTS:LNVGY), ZTE Corporation (SHE:000063) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) might be interested in acquiring the handsets, and the BlackBerry 10 operating system of the company.
Furthermore, Misek expressed disappointment regarding the reported lack of interest of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and other domestic pension funds as well as the lack of effort of the Canadian government to keep BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) under local ownership.
“I think it [the loss of BlackBerry] would be catastrophic for IT here. If you work in the U.S., you see how much they fight for these jobs, how promotional they are. How could Canada ever let this go away? It would be devastating. The future of the country is in IT.”
