BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), (TSE:BB) appears to be back on track and the company is seemingly protective of its territory. The Blackphone, an apparently secure smartphone offering from SGP Technologies, is muscling in on BlackBerry business and the company isn’t going to take it any more. According to the Canadian handset maker the Blackphone offers just “consumer” level security features and is unsuitable for businesses.
An article about the Blackphone appeared on the BlackBerry Business Blog on Friday. The piece, which was authored by Blackberry Enterprise Content Strategist Joe McGarvey, lists the problems that businesses may run into if they choose the Blackphone to fill their security needs.
BlackBerry is still essential for security
The blog post is a mass defense of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), (TSE:BB) virtues and a reinforcement of what differentiates the company from competitors. According to McGarvey, “The Blackphone was designed chiefly for consumers. The product’s target market sweet spot appears to be individuals — not necessarily affiliated with an enterprise — requiring eavesdrop-proof communications. The Blackphone appears to be designed to operate outside the realm of IT oversight.”
On the other hand “When it comes to enterprise security – in a Pre- or Post-Snowden environment – the protection offered by BlackBerry’s end-to-end EMM solution makes the most attractive features of the Blackphone superfluous.”
The basic conclusion is that the security features of the Blackphone do not do much for an enterprise trying to secure its communications system and log details that need to be logged. BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), (NASDAQ:BB) service offer just that, albeit at high cost.
Blackberry, with its new found love for weird smartphones, is aiming itself squarely at enterprise, and everything the company is doing lately exudes that focus.
Blackphone operates on Snowden’s inspiration
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), (TSE:BB) appears to have changed its tone in recent months. When the company uses the word “Consumer” these days it sounds a lot like the word “Uninitiated.” The Blackphone blog post is no different in its tone.
Beginning with a reference to Edward Snowden and the “cottage industry of consumer-targeted secure communications products” he may have inadvertently created, the piece seems to bemoan the mainstreaming of telecommunications encryption.
The full range of abilities of the Blackphone, which will only began to be shipped this month, is not quite known, but it’s clear that BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), (TSE:BB) views the product as a “casual” way to protect privacy. If you really need your information safe then Blackberry is the only way to go, or at least that’s what the company reckons.
For those not so sure about the pros and cons of the two security offerings, and overwhelmed by the technicalities to which the BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), (TSE:BB) goes to, which surely includes most of the potential owners of either phone, perhaps this is a decision best left up to someone you trust or, at the very least, the person who will bear the corporate brunt if anything goes wrong.
