BlackBerry Makes Another Acquisition In Security Sector

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Sure, BlackBerry is not the giant it once one in the smartphone industry, but its popularity in enterprise is still strong as the company’s security is the best in the business.

BlackBerry still has a following with the security conscious

BlackBerry is building a new consulting business it’s calling Professional Cybersecurity Services. As part of this new business, BlackBerry announced this week that it has acquired Encription Ltd., a cybersecurity consultancy that works from “from a secure location in Worcestershire” in the UK. As you would expect from a cybersecurity firm, not much is known about the firm beyond the fact that it has customers all over the world and doesn’t seem to have ever approached venture capitalists to help build its business.

Terms of the deal were not announced today but BlackBerry did confirm that the deal was completed late last week on February 19th. With the acquisition, BlackBerry has now made 29 public acquisitions as both BlackBerry and Research In Motion. This includes a number of acquisitions in the security field. Last year, BlackBerry ponied up $150 million for Watchdox; while it bought Secusmart and Good technology before that. The latter two focus on voice encryption and security for mobile device management sytems respectively. While those three were essentially tech acquisitions, it’s believed that Encription ltd. will help Blackberry focus on providing services to manage security concerns for its clients.

Governments, lawyers and bankers still love BlackBerry

BlackBerry has more government certifications than any other in the smartphone field at 70; this includes all G7 governments and 80% of the G20 governments. Additionally, the largest law firms and banks happily call on BlackBerry for enterprise solutions where data security is key.

“BlackBerry is the gold standard when it comes to security and we’re always evolving to maintain this high standard as the complexity of enterprise mobility and security increases,” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, BlackBerry, in a statement today when he announced the purchase. “We recognize that security vulnerabilities are a top risk concern for public and private sector organizations alike. The creation of our Professional Cybersecurity Services practice and acquisition of Encription reinforces our commitment to providing customers the industry’s most secure mobility solutions and helping them to assess and mitigate risks.”

As a result of the near $400 billion that data breaches can cost companies and individuals annually, security consulting is also a big market which is expected to grow to $23 billion this year and continue to grow. the company is looking to get in on this money by competing with former partners whom helped make the company such a star in the enterprise market.

When BlackBerry announced the formation of Professional Cybersecurity Services, it said that it would concentrate on the following key areas:

Strategic Security: best practices in IT operation ranging across enterprise mobility management and cloud services.

Technical Security: technical assistance for infrastructure and product development lifecycle.

Automotive and IoT Security: security consulting services as the rapid commercialization of IoT solutions makes security and privacy a top priority.

Detection, Testing and Analysis: threat detection and mitigation penetration testing, vulnerability assessment and incident response analysis. This includes forensic services, business security status via IT health checks, training, regulatory compliance and security breach management through incident response.

While for many BlackBerry has been gone for a long time, others know that the former RIM will likely be around for some time. Nokia is still doing quite well and they no longer make phones or do mapping work with HERE.

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